Fasting | Desiring God Through Fasting: For New Wine

A Hunger for God Post 2 of 7 | New Fasting for New Wine

This is a special City Notes for Emmaus City Church in relation to fasting from the book, A Hunger for God. Here are some previous reflections:

Post 1 of 7 | A Homesickness for God

5-Minute Reflection

"But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast." – Matthew 9:15

"The true mortification of our carnal nature is not a simple matter of denial and discipline. It is an internal, spiritual matter of finding more contentment in Christ than in food." – pg. 33

Fasting is a way of saying that having more of the Giver surpasses having the gift.

"It is true that Jesus has given the Holy Spirit in his absence and that the Holy Spirit is 'the Spirit of Jesus' (Acts 16:7; 2 Corinthians 3:17). So in a profound and wonderful sense Jesus is still with us. He said, speaking of the 'Comforter,' the Spirit, 'I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you' (John 14:18). Nevertheless, there is a greater degree of intimacy that we will enjoy with Christ in heaven when this age is over. So in another sense Christ is not with us, but away from us. This is why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:8: 'We (would) prefer to be absent from the body and at home with the Lord,' and in Philippians 1:23, 'To depart and be with Christ ... is very much better.' In other words, in this age there is an ache inside every Christian that Jesus is not here as fully and intimately and as powerfully and as gloriously as we want him to be. We hunger for so much more. That is why we fast." – pg. 38

" ...  the new wine of Christ's presence demands not no fasting, but new fasting. ... 'The new fasting is based on the mystery that the bridegroom has come, not just will come. The new wine of his presence calls for new fasting.' In other words, the yearning and longing and ache of the old fasting was not based on the glorious truth that the Messiah had come. The mourning over sin and the yearning for deliverance from danger and the longing for God that inspired the old fasting were not based on the great finished work of the Redeemer and the great revelation of his truth and grace in history. These things were all still in the future. But now the Bridegroom has come. And in coming he struck the decisive blow against sin and Satan and death. What distinguishes Christianity from Judaism is that the longed-for kingdom of God is now present as well as future. The King has come. 'The kingdom of God has come upon you' (Luke 11:20). 'The kingdom of God is in your midst' (Luke 17:21). It is true that the kingdom of God is not yet fully consummated. It is still to come in glorious fullness and power. At the Last Supper Jesus said, 'I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes' (Luke 22:18)." – pgs. 40-41

"The aching and yearning and longing for Christ and his power that drive us to fasting are not the expression of emptiness. Need, yes. Pain, yes. Hunger for God, yes. But not emptiness. The firstfruits of what we long for have already come. The downpayment of what we yearn for is already paid. The fullness that we are longing for and fasting for has appeared in history, and we have beheld his glory. It is not merely future. We do not fast out of emptiness. Christ is already in us the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). We have been 'sealed ...  with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given (now!) as a pledge of our inheritance' (Ephesians 1:13-14; see also 2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5). ... The newness of our fasting is this: its intensity comes not because we have never tasted the wine of Christ's presence, but because we have tasted it so wonderfully by his Spirit, and cannot now be satisfied until the consummation of joy arrives. The new fasting, the Christian fasting, is a hunger for all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19), aroused by the aroma of Jesus's love and by the taste of God's goodness in the gospel of Christ (1 Peter 2:2-3). ... Faith is a spiritual feasting on Christ with a view to being so satisfied in him that the power of all other allurements is broken. This feasting begins by receiving the past grace of Christ's death and resurrection, and then embraces all that God promises to be for us in him." – pgs. 42-43

"Christian fasting does not tremble in the hope of earning anything from Christ. It looks away form itself to the final payment of Calvary for every blessing it will ever receive. Christian fasting is not self-wrought discipline that tries to deserve more from God. It is a hunger for God awakened by the taste of God freely given in the gospel. ... Fasting is not a no to the goodness of food or the generosity of God in providing it. Rather, it is a way of saying, from time to time, that having more of the Giver surpasses having the gift." – pg. 44 

"Normally we meet God in his good gifts and turn every enjoyment into worship with thanksgiving. But from time to time we need to test ourselves to see if we have begun to love his gifts in place of God. ... Christian fasting is the effect of what Christ has already done for us and in us. It is not our feat, but the Spirit's fruit. Recall that the last-mentioned fruit of the Spirit is 'self-control' (Galatians 5:23). ... Fasting gives glory to God when it is experienced as a gift from God aimed at knowing and enjoying more of God." – pgs. 44-46

" ... Paul did direct our attention toward fasting and numerous other kinds of self-denial – not as meritorious religious rituals, and not as an end in themselves, but as a weapon in the fight of faith. Twice, when Paul was listing his trials, he mentioned fasting. 'I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often in fastings, in cold and exposure' (2 Corinthians 11:27; see also 6:5). This fits with what he said about how he handled the appetites of his body. 'I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified' (1 Corinthians 9:26-27). I take this to mean that Paul regarded some ascetic discipline as a useful weapon in the fight of faith. Holding fast to Christ by faith is the key to not being 'disqualified.' This is plain, for example, from Colossians 1:23, '(Christ will present you holy and blameless to God) if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel.' Persevering faith is the key to standing before God acceptable in the last day. Paul says that one weapon in this ongoing fight of faith is the practice of 'buffering the body.' He was not unaware that the desires of the body are deceitful as well as delightful. He said that the 'old self' is 'being corrupted in accordance with the desires of deceit' (Ephesians 4:22, author's translation). The nature of this deceit is to lure us subtly into living for the 'fleeting pleasures' of body and mind, rather than the spiritual delights of knowing and serving God. These pleasures start as innocent delights in food and reading and resting and playing, but then become ends in themselves and choke off spiritual hunger for God. Paul buffets his body to put himself to the test. Does he hunger for God? Is his faith real? Or is he becoming the slave of comfort and bodily pleasures? You can hear the passion of his heart in 1 Corinthians 6:12, 'I will not be mastered by anything!' This is not the pride of Stoic self-exaltation. It is the passionate resolve to resist anything that lures the heart away from an all-controlling satisfaction in God." – pgs. 46-47 

"The South Korean church are pacesetters in buffeting the body in prayer that fits a person of heaven. A young man came up to me after one of the messages I gave on fasting and prayer and told me: 'I grew up on the mission field in Korea. There is one experience emblazoned on my mind to show the sacrificial dedication to prayer and fasting in Korea. My father worked with a leper colony, and they had prayer meetings that met at four o'clock in the morning. I was a little boy, but my father took me with him, getting up at about 3:30 A.M. to get there on time. He sat me down in the back where I could see out the door. And I'll never forget one man who had no legs, no crutches, and was using his hands and crabbing along the ground, dragging his body to pray at 4 A.M. I'll never forget that.' Rising early is a kind of fast. And coming to pray when it is hard to get there is another kind of fast. When we make such choices, we make war on the deceitfulness of our desires and declare the preciousness of prayer and the all-surpassing worth of God." – pgs. 47-48

"(Fasting) comes from confidence in Christ and is sustained by the power of Christ and aims at the glory of Christ. Over every Christian fast should be written the words, 'I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ' (Philippians 3:7-8). In fasting, as well as in other privations, every loss is for the sake of 'gaining Christ.' But this does not mean that we seek to gain a Christ we do not have. Nor does it mean that our progress depends on ourselves. Four verses later Paul makes plain the dynamics of the entire Christian life – including fasting: 'I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.' This is the essence of Christian fasting: We ache and yearn – and fast – to know more and more of all that God is for us in Jesus. But only because he has already laid hold of us and is drawing us ever forward and upward into 'all the fullness of God.'" – pg. 48

Next post: Fasting Post 3 of 7 | The Desert Feast of Fasting

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