Fasting God’s Way

CHAPTER 1: FASTING, A DEMONSTRATION OF LOVE


“Fasting is picking up your cross, carrying it, and dying on it for the sake of others; only love drives one to do so.” Author.

In the book of Isaiah, chapter 58, God used the prophet to tell us the do's and don't of fasting. In that chapter we can find God's expressed urgency to correct His people, showing them their shortcomings and reveal the erroneous perceptions His people had about fasting. This chapter revealed God’s zeal to teach them the truth about fasting. Isaiah, chapter 58 shows us what God accepts as fasting, or what I'd like to call “Fasting God's Way.” So keep reading as I show you what The Lord showed me about true fasting.


Fasting! Fasting! Read All About It!

“Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.” Isaiah 58:1

God told Isaiah to voice aloud the message about fasting, and do not hold back from speaking plainly, so that everyone can hear and know what fasting is truly about. This shows that fasting was an important subject that God did not want His people to misunderstand it. God used Isaiah to expose erroneous concepts, and common failures people encounter when they fast in ignorance. Misunderstanding what fasting is about will result in doing it the wrong way and unfortunately, for the wrong reasons. It can be very frustrating when we make such painful physical sacrifices and it turns out to be a waste of time. For this reason, out of concern for us, God wants us to know the truth about what successful fasting entails. The Lord told Isaiah to make this information about fasting as public as possible so that Israel could know the truth about this important matter. I believe The Lord also wanted me to be as loud as possible about fasting and prompted me to write this book. So though this book may not be audibly loud, I hope to you it would be as if I were shouting from the mountains.


Don’t Fool Yourself, Because You’re Not Fooling God
“For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.” Isaiah 58: 2 – 4.

The verses above speak of a people who fasted while being deluded about what fasting was really about. God sent the prophet Isaiah to show them their faults in the way they fasted, so that they could see where they went wrong and turn to what is right. The prophet exposed their misconceptions about fasting and in essence told them that their hearts were not saying what they thought their fasting was. By the act of fasting Israel appeared to pursue God, but the motives for their fast showed that they were not truly pursuing Him. They were once again pursuing God's hand and not His ways. God described them this way, “They seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God.” Isaiah 58: 2. God wanted His people to know that forsaking His commands while they attempted to seek His response through fasting would only result in His silence. Fasting while neglecting God's commands meant that they were ignoring the most important part of fasting which is ‘love’.
When the Pharisees asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, Jesus recited what God told Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 8. He said, “To love God with their all, and to love their neighbor as they would love themselves” were the greatest commandments. These are the commands Isaiah was referring to when He said “They seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that... has not forsaken the commands of God.” Because Israel's fast was missing the key ingredient of love, God did not respond to their fast. This led to their frustration whenever they fasted and did not see results.
Fasting without love is a hypocritical trap from the deceiver. Have you ever noticed how Jesus addressed hypocrisy? He exposed it and those who practice it. This is another reason why God wanted Isaiah to cry aloud, to expose hypocritical traps concerning fasting so that everyone would hear and avoid them. Unfortunately, though the bible contain scriptures that exposes hypocritical traps about fasting, many individuals and churches today are still ensnares by them. But just as God told Isaiah to show His people their mistakes, I also appeal that if you fast without love you are holding to the same fallacy Israel had in Isaiah's day. The problem with fallacies is thinking you are right when the truth is you are falling short of God’s expectations. This is why it is so important to expose deceptive concepts about fasting so that everyone would know the truth, turn, and see God's healing power in and through their lives.