Fasting - why and how?

Hello everyone. I would love to share with you a bit about something I've been receiving a few questions about, and that is fasting. So let's get straight into it. Firstly, let me maybe say what are the wrong reasons to fast. People have the perception that you fast to some extent to have God do something for you. We don't fast to twist God's arm or to manipulate Him. That's the wrong reason to fast.

So what are the right reasons to fast? Why do you want to fast? Obviously you can fast for health reasons, but that's not relating to the spiritual aspect we want to touch on today. Other than that, you fast to actually become spiritually sensitive – sensitive to hear God's voice. You fast in order to demonstrate to your flesh that your spirit is the authority and that your spirit is in charge.

So that's one of the strong reasons that one would fast, in order to submit the flesh to the spirit. Fasting is also a demonstration of your dedication unto God, to show that it is firstly about God, that He is God, that it's not about you firstly, but firstly about Him, and we demonstrate that through fasting as well.

There are obviously different kinds of fasting. People do it in different ways. Some people, for instance, will not eat but still continue to drink water and so forth. Others will not eat or drink anything at all. Some people will do what they call the Daniel fast, which is more on the healthy side, eating vegetables and so forth. Then some people will just take something particular in their life and let it out – something they enjoy very much or do very often. For instance, some people will just stop drinking coffee, or stop watching television, or if they're a bit addicted to their phone, they will switch it off for four hours or whatever.

So there are different ways of doing it, and the question is not which one is right or wrong. If you understand the purpose of fasting, you will understand it's very much personal. If you understand the goal, where you are heading, then whatever gets you there is fine. For that reason, we need to talk a bit about the actual purpose, and we'll get to that in more detail.

I think one of the important aspects relating to fasting is what you actually do during it. We need to understand that fasting has a spiritual purpose, so it would not help if you just don't eat for a day – that's not a fast, that's a diet. If you want to achieve the purpose of a fast from a spiritual perspective, you can't just do the physical adjustment – the not eating, the not drinking, or whatever you are leaving. The focus should be that there has to be time you spend on the spiritual side of things. Whatever it is that you are cutting out, you have to have time during that where you can spend time in the presence of our Father, praying, listening to His voice, being sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

So people ask, "Can I fast while I'm working?" Yes, you can fast while you are working. You can just try to have some slot during the day where you can isolate yourself and pray a bit. That doesn't mean that having to do other things during your fast will stop it from achieving what it should. That's totally fine. You can definitely do that.

Maybe I can give you a bit of perspective on the bigger picture. There's something we have to understand, and that is that we continuously live in two realms at the same time. We live in a physical realm, which is what we can see and touch around us, but at the same time we live in the spiritual realm, and we need to start understanding a bit more about both. Then fasting will start making more sense to you.

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.”

John 6:63 (NKJV)

So what does that say? When we want to fast, we want to get closer into that spiritual realm and start walking in those realities. That is why during fasting we set aside as much of the physical as we can and try to focus on the spiritual side of it.

“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.”

John 7:38 (AMPC)

If you look at that word, all the translations try to use a different word there. Some say from your heart, from your belly, from your womb, and some translate it as from your innermost being. That word is koilia, and it actually refers to a cavity, a womb, the source of life that is inside of you. Once you become born again and receive the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit resides in you, and from that place where God resides, where the Holy Spirit resides, there is your ability to bring forth life.

That's why it says, "From your innermost being will flow rivers of life-giving water." Your ability to give life, your ability to effect change, is in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is inside your spirit. So you function from that place. When we want to talk about fasting, let's keep that in mind in terms of what we want to achieve and where the source is that will yield those results. Again, we don't fast to manipulate God or twist His arm to do something for us. There is something more to it.

Depending on how you grew up, you're probably much more comfortable and knowledgeable about the physical. We go through stages where everything in our life is about the physical – that's what we engage with, that's what we experience, that's where we're taught to respond in certain ways. Then once we become spiritually sensitive, we realise there is a spiritual realm. And not only that – we start realising the spiritual realm is the authoritative realm.

God preexisted the physical world, and God is a spirit, which shows us the authoritative realm is the spiritual. So we need to know more about the spiritual realm, because that's where our true power and ability lies – that's the realm God actually functions in, primarily the authoritative realm.

“God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

John 4:24 (NKJV)

Why those two things? In spirit, because God is a spirit – we need to be sensitive to the spiritual realm, associating with where God is, how He functions and who He is, so we're worshipping Him in spirit. Then it says, "and in truth." That word truth in the Greek is aletheios, and it actually means reality.

So it means that in the spiritual there is something that exists. It's there, it's authoritative. It may sometimes be difficult for us to grasp, but it's more real, more powerful, than the physical world we stay in. Therefore we need to get to know more of what the spiritual realm looks like, and in essence, that becomes our reality.

That's why it says it is truth – it is real, it is reality. But we need to learn more about what that reality looks like, how it functions, and then in the physical realm we start acting and responding according to that which we know is real in the spiritual. In essence, that is what faith is. Faith is not hoping God will do something. Faith is not a leap in the dark. Faith is knowing reality, and then we act in the physical world based on the realities we know exist in the spiritual.

So once we go through these phases in life, we first mostly live based on the physical realm. Then we become more spiritually sensitive, and we realise our physical life is actually much more spiritual than we think. Once we grasp those truths, we get to a point where we see that the spiritual life is actually much more physical than what we think.

Because there are spiritual laws, and those are realities. Like there is a physical law of gravity that always works, there are spiritual laws that always work. But to enable and activate those spiritual laws, I must actually act physically in this world. If I can use an example: the Word says it's more blessed to give than to receive. Why is that? Because it's a spiritual law. But how do I activate that spiritual law? I have to actually do something physically. I can't just, like the Word says, when you find somebody hungry, say "Be blessed, go away," and he's still cold and hungry. I need to physically act. I need to physically give him food. I need to physically clothe him. But in that physical action, I am activating the authoritative realm and its laws, which is more powerful, and that starts effecting change in my life. Isn't that amazing?

So coming back to fasting, we start understanding a bit about what it is we want to achieve through it. In actual fact, what we want to achieve through fasting is to align ourselves more with reality. The spiritual realm, authority – it is real, it's more real than this, but we want to become more aware of it, and then we want to respond to it.

If we look at a few examples in the Word regarding fasting, one we know very well is just after Jesus got baptised, He went to the desert for 40 days. During that time He was fasting, and He had a lot of interaction – firstly with His Father: the heavens opened up and the Father said, "This is My beloved Son." Then He went into the desert, He was fasting, He had the encounter with Satan, and He had the encounter with angels at the end. That shows how the sensitivity during that fasting period positioned Him to have the encounter with the spiritual realm, and He basically covered everything – God the Father, Satan, and angels. I'm sure there were a few demons around Satan as well. So during that time He had that engagement, that interaction, because of His sensitivity and awareness of the spiritual realm.

“And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.”

Matthew 4:2 (NKJV)

He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards He was hungry. But there is something I want to emphasise regarding this example of the fasting period of Jesus. This was directly after the most spiritually significant event in the life of Jesus. He just got baptised. As He came out of the water, the heavens opened up, the Father spoke and said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." That was actually when the Spirit of God came upon Jesus, and for all intents and purposes He was equipped only then, and His ministry only started from that point on, although He was already thirty years old.

So you can see, spiritually, the most significant event that Jesus experienced – what happened directly after that? He went into this period of fasting. That's something we can learn when we talk about fasting. When there is something spiritually significant that happens in your life, it is a great opportunity for you at that stage to actually fast.

Why? Two reasons, roughly. The one is that you want to become spiritually more aware, more sensitive about exactly what happened, and during that period of fasting you will gain more consciousness, awareness and conviction of what actually happened during that time.

So spiritually sensitive, because something spiritually significant happened. Then on the other hand, during that time of fasting you are cementing it in your spirit – you are gaining a conviction of what happened. That is what Jesus also had to do. It is probably inevitable that if something spiritually significant happens in your life, Satan is going to come and try to steal from it. And what is one of the main ways Satan steals from us? Through our mind, through our thoughts.

So Satan is going to come and try to tell you, "Man, this thing didn't happen," or "It's not what you think happened," or "Who do you think you are? You're not so important that this could have happened to you." Whatever it is. So I want to encourage you: when something spiritually significant happens, set aside some time. Fast so that you can get a conviction of what happened. Understand what happened, to the extent that's possible, and cement it in your spirit, and declare it. You appropriate whatever happened spiritually in your life, and you don't allow Satan to steal it.

With the example of the fasting of Jesus, that's one of the examples where this happened. Then there's another example which we also know very well, and people often use, and that is of the young boy who was deaf and dumb.

“So He said to them, "This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting."”

Mark 9:29 (NKJV)

We can talk a lot about that – there are so many different opinions – but I think there is something at the core we must learn from this, and that is that Jesus said He Himself could do nothing except what He saw the Father do. If that was relevant and appropriate for Jesus, I'm sure it's the same for us. Yes, the outpouring of the Spirit enables the Holy Spirit to now show us the heart of the Father. The Holy Spirit brings us the presence of the Father and engages with us. So the Holy Spirit will show us what the heart of the Father is.

“Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner."”

John 5:19 (NKJV)

It is very important that we realise, if we are fasting, it enables us to be more sensitive, to hear God's voice, to engage with God, to have that fellowship and that time, and to be able to see – if we want to effect change, we must align with reality. We must align with the heart of the Father. Fasting enables us to do that. When we set aside other things, we are able to focus, we are able to become more sensitive. And in that process we can hear more clearly the voice of the Father, we can see what the Father is showing us.

If we truly want to effect change in our lives – maybe something you want to overcome, something you want to change, or just something in your environment – the more in line we come with reality, the spiritual realm, the more in line we come with the Father's voice and His heart and what He shows us, the more we are enabled to actually effect that change. So there we touch pretty much on the core of what we want to achieve with fasting.

And that is: it is not God that's going to effect the change. The change is actually happening in our hearts. The change is happening in our alignment and conviction and experience of reality and the Father's heart. And in that conviction, we have the ability to start changing things. Maybe it's things in your life you need to get rid of. Maybe it's things you start changing. Maybe it's something God wants to send you to go and do to effect change. In that process of fasting, you become more familiar and sensitive to what the Father's heart is concerning that.

“But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

Matthew 6:6 (NKJV)

When we fast, we don't have to let everybody know we are fasting. It's between us and God. It's about being able to become sensitive to His voice.

So coming back to that example of the boy who was deaf and dumb: the disciples tried to chase out the demon, or the deaf and dumb spirit, and then Jesus came and actually did it, and they were quite curious why they could not do it. Jesus gave them those words. But for me, it reflects the relationship that Jesus had. Whenever Jesus had to do something – when He multiplied the bread and the fish – how did He know to do that? I am convinced that during His personal prayer time, His alone time with the Father, the Father already showed Him. So when He came into that situation, He knew what to do. I believe that is what Jesus was referring to. It was not, "Okay, go pray, fast, then you come and chase out the demon." It was not that.

Through that prayer and fasting, it is changing our focus to God, to His ability, to His presence, to His heart, to Him showing us. And then from that relationship, from that conviction, we function on a daily basis. We can't, with everything we encounter during the day, all of a sudden go pray and fast. It is a continuous process of engaging with our Father when we make Him priority, when we set aside that time, and in that process we become more and more sensitive and get a conviction. And because of that sensitivity, we walk in the authority of the Father. That is why Jesus could do the things He did – because of His relationship with the Father and a conviction of spiritual realities. That is what fasting is for us. We get to that place where we have that conviction, and we either function from that authoritative place in the spiritual realm, or we have a conviction to start changing things.

So in conclusion, some of the aspects you can expect during fasting is actually even physically to have a heightened sensitivity in terms of your senses. Everything tastes better afterwards, and you smell and touch things, and you're just more alert. That's part of it in the physical. But it's true also for the spiritual, where you become more sensitive. You are thinking or experiencing in the spiritual more clearly. You know what God is saying. You experience His voice and what He's showing you to do. So you gain more of a conviction, you start gaining clarity.

And in that process you are demonstrating as well that it is about God. You are demonstrating to your body that you can actually go without food and drink. You are submitting your body. One of the biggest things we have to achieve in our spiritual life is discipline. Nothing much in life is achieved without discipline, and even in the spiritual we have to implement disciplines. Fasting enables that opportunity for us as well, to have discipline, to say, "I will not eat something today, I will not drink something today, because I, my spirit, am in control, and I make the decisions. I am not driven by the desires of my flesh."

I trust that gave you some answers concerning fasting, and that it will help you. God bless you. We chat soon.