I have found that hungering and thirsting for God brings with it a much greater reward than satisfying the temporary hunger I may be experiencing in my body.
Anna..."a widow of about 84 years (of age), who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day" (Luke 2:37). That just goes to show you that you are never too old to fast. Anna had a hunger for God's Word that was greater than her hunger for food, and her faithfulness in fasting prepared her for what was about to happen.
After Jesus' birth, Joseph and Mary brought their tiny infant to the temple to be dedicated as the firstborn Son...Anna saw Him and instantly gave thanks to God. She then began telling all who looked for the redemption of Israel about the tiny baby who was the long-awaited Messiah (Luke 2:38). Imagine that--a new calling on her life at 84-years old!
Although fasting doesn't get any easier with age, it does get easier with grace. When the Holy Spirit calls you to fast, He is preparing you for what is ahead. Fasting requires faith. As Jesus said, "Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled" (Matt. 5:6, KJV)
Believe God
Heb. 11:1, 5-6 (KJV)
Gen. 5:22 says that Enoch "walked with God" for 300 years! Notice that Enoch did not try to please people. In fact, Jude records that Enoch prophesied in a manner that would have made him very unpopular with the party crowd (Jude 14-15). Enoch's primary concern was walking in faith, which is what pleases God. According to Heb. 11:6, it is reasonable to say that Enoch came to God, he believed God, he diligently sough God, and he was rewarded.
If you want to please God, believe God. Take Him at His Word.
"We walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7). Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego walked by faith and not by sight. The three of them joined Daniel in his initial fast from the king's delicacies. Think about what they saw on their way into that furnace. It had been heated seven times hotter than normal. If they had walked by sight, they would have said, "Today we shall surely be ashes." Instead, by faith, they walked on saying, "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from teh burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king" (Dan. 3:17). Faith is the evidence of things unseen.
Hunger for the Word
Where does the kind of faith that enables you to look at God and believe His Word no matter how grave your circumstances may appear come from?
"Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Rom. 10:17) See Amp version!
It is by hearing God's Word, by hearing the preaching of the gospel, that faith increases. There is something about getting in a church where the anointing flows and you hear the Word of God preached. Faith comes when you hear a man or woman of God preach the Word without compromise to all who will listen. That is the birthplace of faith.
Too many Christians find that they are malnourished in the Word but well fed on the world, and they live defeated lives as a result. God's Word to Adam and Eve was, "In the day that you eat of it you will surely die" (Gen. 2:17). Yet Eve acted on teh wisdom of the world that was spoken by the serpent instead of walking away in faith that God's Word was true.
Jesus was tempted by the same voice that had so cunningly whispered to Eve. Yet Jesus responded, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matt. 4:4). What had Jesus heard just before beginning that time of fasting?
Matt. 3:17, KJV
The Word of God sustained Him through 40-days and nights without food.
How I wish the body of Christ today had that same kind of hunger for God's Word. We need to understand Jesus's words when He said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away" (Mark 13:31)
1 Sam. 17:34-35
Diligence
We must diligently feed on God's Word. Sometimes the best thing we can possibly do is starve our flesh and feed our spirit through a fast. Fasting helps you separate what you want from what you need.
...fasting allows you many opportunities to diligently seek the Lord! You dilgently seek Him when everyone else is going out to teh movies, drinking sodas, and eating popcorn and you choose to stay home to be with teh Lord because you just have to hear from Him.
It comes when you're at work and everyone else is having burgers, fries, and shakes for lunch, but you are having bottled water! Diligence is when you come home from a long, hard day at work, and all you have had all day is water, yet you separate yourself from teh dinner table to feed on the Word.
To be diligent is to be persistent. It means to work hard in doing something and refusing to stop.
Faith is progressive. Faith never gets into a bad situation and says, "I'm just going to sit here and die. It's over." Faith never stands in teh desert, having a pity party with everything drying up around it. You walk by faith. You don't stand still, drowning in your misery.
When you get into battles, you have to keep saying, "I will move forward."
Reward
God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6), which means HE has already laid up rewards for you in heaven. The Bible tells us that if we seek, we will find.
He shares many testimonies of those members in his church who began their year out with the 21-day fast.
One year, at the end of the 21-day fast, a couple walked up to me and handed me a bundle of official papers. Puzzled, I opened them up to see the word DISMISSED stamped in bold black letters. After that, I read the words, The Superior Court of Gwinnett County, State of Georgia, Final Judgment and Decree of Divorce." The couple standing before me had been struggling in their marriage for a year, but during that fast, the season of setting everything else aside and diligently seeking God, a miracle happened! Unity replaced division, and the divorce was dismissed. The devil thought he'd racked up another statisticfor Christian divorces--but God is a rewarder!
The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but Jesus came that we might have life more abundantly (John 10:10). He rewards all who diligently seek Him in faith, because faith is what pleases God.
Are you finding it hard NOT to fast every day that you read an entry?
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