Verses, Quotes & Links to Help Prepare the Heart for a Fast

Example: Preparation for Fasting During the Season of Lent

For reflections on fasting, these previous posts may prove helpful: The Desert Feast of Fasting | Fasting for the Reward of the Father | Fasting for the King's Coming.

Lent creates a space for becoming more fully abandoned to God, and the heart of Lent is identification with Christ. Identification with Christ means more than identification with his resurrection and victory over sin. It also means intimate familiarity with Christ’s humility, trials, and death. This type of dying demands a posture of humility and unconcealed neediness before God. Lent beckons us to consider our true state of existence apart from God. Apart from Christ, our lives are marinated in mess and crumple into darkness and ash. This is the vivid reminder of Ash Wednesday with its imposition of ashes onto our foreheads. With Christ, however, darkness gives way to light and restoration. The theological heart of Lent is embodied by the spiritual discipline of fasting. Self-denial, whether applied to food, activities, or enjoyable habits, frees us for more intimacy with Christ. It creates spaces for reflecting on our radical need for God’s grace. + St. Peter’s Fireside

Lent Fasting Theme Verse: God blesses you who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied. + Luke 6:21

"Prayer needs fasting for its full growth. Prayer is the one hand with which we grasp the invisible. Fasting is the other hand, the one with which we let go of the visible. In nothing is man more closely connected with the world of sense than in this need for, and enjoyment of, food. It was the fruit with which man was tempted and fell in Paradise. It was with bread that Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. But He triumphed in fasting. ... The body has been redeemed to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. In body as well as spirit, Scripture says, we are to glorify God in eating and drinking. There are many Christians to whom this eating for the glory of God has not yet become a spiritual reality. The first thought suggested by Jesus' words in regard to fasting and prayer is that only in a life of moderation and self-denial will there be sufficient heart and strength to pray much .... Fasting helps to express, to deepen, and to confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves to attain the Kingdom of God. And Jesus, who Himself fasted and sacrificed, knows to value, accept, and reward with spiritual power the soul that is thus ready to give up everything for Him and His Kingdom." + Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer

"When the flesh is satisfied it is hard to pray with cheerfulness or to devote oneself to a life of service which calls for much self-renunciation." + Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

"It is impossible to accept Christianity for the sake of finding comfort: but the Christian tries to lay himself open to the will of God, to do what God wants him to do. You don't know in advance whether God is going to set up you to do something difficult or painful, or something that you will quite like; and some people of heroic mould are disappointed when the job doled out to them turns out to be something quite nice. But you must be prepared for the unpleasant things and discomforts. I don't mean fasting, and things like that. They are a different matter. When you are training soldiers in maneuvers, you practice in blank ammunition because you would like them to have practices before meeting the real enemy. So we must practice in abstaining from pleasures which are not in themselves wicked. If you don't abstain from pleasure, you won't be good when the time comes along. It is purely a matter of practice." + C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock

"A selfish person is unable to enjoy the gospel; a Christian is someone who has begun to deny himself, and is in the continuous process of denying himself. Jesus said, 'If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.' Self-denial is not limited to one particular kind of giving; it embraces all personal disciplines. Fasting is only one discipline; nevertheless, it is self-denial. This does not mean that to fast is to embrace legalism; it is gospel liberty which encourages us to deny ourselves. ... Fasting does not create faith, for faith grows in us as we hear and read, and dwell upon, God's Word; it is a work of the Holy Spirit to bring faith to God's people. However, fasting has the capacity to encourage faith in the one who is involved in this discipline. It seems as though the neglect of self feeds the faith which God has implanted in the hearts of born-again believers. This doesn't mean that those who eat the least have the most faith; such a view is not only untrue, it is extremist. It is simply that regular self-denial has its benefits, and one of these is seen in a personal increase in faith." + David R. Smith, Fasting: A Neglected Discipline

"Almost all are agreed that a visitation of the spirit upon the Church is desperately needed. Are we to believe the promise to Joel has nothing to say to this situation? ... Did the events at Pentecost exhaust the Joel prophecy? Obviously not, or there would have been no further outpourings. ... If however we believe this wonderful promise is for us – is in fact God's answer to the present need – it is vital what we fulfill the conditions as well as plead the promise. Three times Joel sounds a clarion call, in view of the imminence of the Day of the Lord, to return to God with fasting (Joel 1:14; 2:12, 15). Then he seems to see in vision God's response: 'Then the Lord became jealous for his land, and had pity on his people' (vs. 18)." + Arthur Wallis, God's Chosen Fast: A Spiritual and Practical Guide to Fasting

"Is fasting ever a bribe to get God to pay more attention to the petitions? No, a thousand times no. It is simply a way to make clear that we sufficiently reverence the amazing opportunity to ask help from the everlasting God, the Creator of the universe, to choose to put everything else aside and concentrate on worshiping, asking for forgiveness, and making our requests known – considering His help more important than anything we could do ourselves in our own strength and with our own ideas." + Edith Schaeffer, The Life of Prayer

Lent Fasting Verses: "'I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. ... Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost'" (Revelation 21:6; 22:17). 

"Fasting is fundamentally an offering of emptiness to God in hope. It is a sacrifice of need and hunger. It says, by its very nature, 'Father, I am empty, but you are full. I am hungry, but you are the Bread of Heaven. I am thirsty, but you are the Fountain of Life. I am weak, but you are strong. I am poor, but you are rich. I am foolish, but you are wise. I am broken, but you are whole. I am dying, but your steadfast love is better than life (Psalm 63:3). ... God rewards fasting because fasting expresses the cry of the heart that nothing on the earth can satisfy our souls besides God. God must reward this cry because God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him." + John Piper, A Hunger for God

Christ is all, 

Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan

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