Let's look at a story in the Bible. In Mark 9:17-29, a man brings his possessed son to Jesus, and this is what takes place:
And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not. He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me. And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us. Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose. And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.
Notice the last verse. This man had brought his son first to the disciples, but they could not cast the spirit out. Then, they take the boy to Jesus, and in one sentence, just one, the spirit is gone. Obviously, because Jesus is God incarnate, he could have easily just looked at the spirit and uttered a silent command, or maybe just waved His hand, and it would have scampered away so quickly that it would have tripped over itself multiple times. Why did he speak? To teach the disciples a lesson. And, thankfully, they realized that they were missing something. They went to Jesus and asked Him, "Why could not we cast him out?" to which he replied, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." Pretty interesting, huh? Here's the same story, but told by Matthew (Matthew 17:14-21):
And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
And in Luke 9:37-42:
And it came to pass, that on the next day, when they were come down from the hill, much people met him. And, behold, a man of the company cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son: for he is mine only child. And, lo, a spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out; and it teareth him that he foameth again, and bruising him hardly departeth from him. And I besought thy disciples to cast him out; and they could not. And Jesus answering said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you, and suffer you? Bring thy son hither. And as he was yet a coming, the devil threw him down, and tare him. And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father.
(One thing to remember about the different versions is that, they were written by three separate men with three varying viewpoints. And each man wrote with a different purpose in mind. Because of this, sometimes the details are slightly varied, but all of the stories are still correct.)
One interesting thing to note is that fasting, in the Bible, when speaking of spiritual things, is always coupled with prayer. We'll talk about this later on. In this story, it appears that they were also having some issues with lack of faith and unbelief (which some could argue as being the same thing). Jesus did touch on this with them, and, from Matthew 17:20, we find the famous "faith as a mustard seed" Scripture. But He also left them a clue. "Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." (Matthew) "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." (Mark) In law, they teach that during a trial, one must have 2 or more agreeing witnesses for something to be true. In that case, there's your proof.
But, you might say, "Hey, wait! They didn't fast while Jesus was with them." That's true. In Luke 5:33-35, Jesus explains why, and later in the chapter even gives a parable concerning it.
"And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink? And he said unto them, Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days."
Jesus, the bridegroom, was with them. Let's look at it this way, when you're at a wedding, do you wear all black to the wedding? Do you skip bringing a present? Do you forbid yourself to eat cake? Do you avoid laughing, smiling, congratulating, and enjoying the day with the new couple? Of course not! Weddings are meant to be a celebration of a new life, a time of fun, love, and laughter. You wouldn't want to be mopey during such a great moment, would you? Exactly. And this is why they didn't fast. (This story also appears in Matthew 9:14-15 and Mark 2:19-20.)
Fasting is a hard thing. One must sacrifice their flesh and must submit themselves. And, the only part of us that enjoys that is our spirit. Let's face it. No one likes going without food, staying with a certain type of diet (Daniel's fast), avoiding their favorite video game, staying away from media, or any other type of thing that you may fast. It's not fun, because your flesh wants to do those things, but you are choosing to not do so. Because Jesus was with them, it was a time of celebration. I mean, seriously, if you were hanging out with God incarnate, would you want to be mopey? No way! I'd be having the time of my life! "Hey, Jesus, I'll race you to the top of this mountain. Oh, look! You're already there." "Hey, want to play Scrabble?" "Hey, want to have a juggling competition?" "Can you tell me in chronological order the events of Earth's history?" "How exactly did you come up with light?" "How did you confuse the languages at the Tower of Babel?" "How do our speech processors work?" "How exactly do the signal-carrying electrical currents travel throughout the body?" "How does my brain tell my legs to move?" "Why do I not like oranges, but love orange juice?" "Hey, let's have a party! I'll introduce you to all my friends!" If God incarnate was sitting in your living room, what would you do?
Earlier, I spoke of a clue. My belief is that Jesus was giving them direction for their coming ministries. Because it is true: if you wish to further your ministry into the unknown, you must first fast and pray. You can't receive this kind of growth through other's relationship with God (Acts 19:13-16). Let's look at it this way. Say you're trying to lose weight. If your friend goes for a run, and you just sit on the couch, will you lose any weight? No! Why not? Your friend was exercising! Because you did not do the work. Fast forward a few months... the process is the same. Every day your friend goes for a run, and you just sit on the couch. Who will lose the weight? The Friend will. It is the same application. You do not see progress in yourself unless you do the work.
Jesus was saying, Hey, you're going to need this tool after my ascension. You'll need to call upon My Name for these things to happen, and when that happens, you'll need to be prepared. He knew that those men were going to shake the world to its very core. He had planned it all, and now He was preparing them.
Why is it important that you couple prayer and fasting? I can answer this in one word: temptation. In Matthew 26:41, it reads, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Now, just so you're aware, this verse has nothing to do with fasting. In fact, this verse comes from when Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane before His crucifixion. The disciples had fallen asleep, and Jesus was warning them of the vulnerability of the flesh towards temptation. Although this verse is not related to fasting at all, the concept is the same. When one fasts, they are putting their flesh into submission. They sacrifice their fleshly desires. Because of this sacrifice, our fleshly selves are not pleased at all. They don't like it, nor do they enjoy it one bit. Which means that when temptation comes along, it comes with great strength, and our flesh wishes to indulge in that temptation. This is why prayer is coupled with fasting. To fast without prayer is to have a lopsided table. If you place something on the table, it will fall off and crash onto the floor. But, if you fast and pray, your table is level, and the strength combined is enough to hold up what is placed onto the table. You become stronger spiritually, and are more able to fight these temptations.
Fasting is not a bad thing at all. Even Jesus fasted (Matthew 4:1-11). Fasting only becomes bad for you if you either 1) do it for the wrong reasons, or 2) do it ignorantly. The average person can go without food for 40 days. Some people can't go without food for very long periods because of the way their body is made, and some people can't do it at all due to health reasons. That's ok. Fasting is not only abstinence from food. True fasting is in your motives; it is only true fasting when you purpose to put God first. You look at your priorities and what you do most, and if those priorities have nothing to do with God, then you purpose to change what you are doing, and sometimes cut it out completely for a time. This even counts with food, because it is quite often that food can become such a great temptation. Fasting is simply the practice of self-control and sacrifice of the flesh, which results in God being first in your life. As an example, for 30 days I did Daniel's fast where I did not eat meat, dairy, eggs, or sweets. I also fasted videos, a particular video game, and for two weeks I fasted Facebook & Pinterest. Please understand that I am not bragging. Any effort to fast is a great thing, no matter how great or how small. I'm showing you that it's not always necessary to fast food. It's often preferred because you must really control flesh more so than if you weren't watching movies or playing a video game. But it's also important to look at the other things in your life. I had been spending too much time on my video game, movies, Facebook, and Pinterest. Because of this, I chose to abstain from those things; I needed to refocus. My parents and I decided to do Daniel's fast because we would have unified fasting in our home, which is good when you are a team of ministry.
Moving on, fasting is very good and beneficial. If you are trying to fast food but have medications that you need to take food with, I'm sure God will understand if you have to eat a piece of bread with your medicine. Sometimes, we have to make exceptions because of health reasons. But, if we are healthy, there is no reason for us to have exceptions. Everyone in the church is on different levels of spiritual understanding. One cannot expect a new convert to suddenly go with no food for 40 days. They must grow to the point where they can achieve it. To be honest, I've never fasted food completely before, and last month was the first time I had done Daniel's fast for 30 days. This doesn't make me any less of a Christian. I have simply not felt that I was ready spiritually for a no-food fast, and doing Daniel's fast for 30 days was an accomplishment in itself for me. It is a process for everyone. The more you grow, the more you can do. It's like a child... they must crawl before they walk, sit before they stand, and speak jibberish before they talk. I freely admit that I'm still growing, and that I'm far from finished. But, I do my best to grow, and in the future, I will complete a no-food fast. It's a personal goal.
As followers of Christ, we must continuously align our priorities correctly, sacrifice our flesh, strengthen our spirit, and strive to move closer to God. As a result, we do become closer with Him, we learn more about Who He is, and He, in turn, furthers our ministries. And fasting is a successful method to accomplish this. I think that I would rather place my flesh in check, if it meant that I could help someone come to the place where they can receive God's Spirit. That's a fair trade, don't you think?
Have a lovely day!
Very good thoughts, Candace!
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