Fasting | Desiring God Thru Fasting: Desert Feast of Fasting

 

A Hunger for God Post 3 of 7 | The Desert Feast of Fasting

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  

Post 2 of 7 | New Fasting for New Wine

5-Minute Reflection

"And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." – Deuteronomy 8:2-3

"The weakness of hunger which leads to death brings forth the goodness and power of God who wills life. Here there is no exhortion, no magic attempt to force God's will. We merely look with confidence upon our heavenly Father and through our fasting say gently in our hearts: 'Father, without you I will die; come to my assistance, make haste to help me." – pg. 50, Joseph Wimmer, Fasting in the New Testament

If he who was the Light of the world fought for his fire with fasting, is there something to be learned here for our flickering wicks?

"The Son of God began his earthly ministry with a forty-day fast. This should give us pause. Especially if we – who are not God – have moved into ministry heedless of the battle we may have to fight. ... The salvation of the world may not hang on our success, since we are light-years less than he. But that may heighten rather than lesson the need of fasting in our lives. The stakes of my warfare are smaller for the world, but my weakness is greater." – pg. 51

"My heart is hungry for 'all the fullness of God.' I long for a deeper work of God in the midst of his people. I yearn for a mighty tide of missionary zeal to spread a passion for the supremacy of Christ in all things for the joy of all peoples. I long to see unmistakable, supernatural new birth taking place week in and week out through the compelling witness of God's transformed people wherever he is named. ... Charles Spurgeon, the London pastor from a century ago, said, 'Our seasons of fasting and prayer at the Tabernacle have been high days indeed; never has Heaven's gate stood wider; never have our hearts been nearer the central Glory.' Getting near the glory of God is surely the key to burning with inextinguishable light and heat. And is this not the need of the hour – every hour – that the blind may see, and turn from darkness to light, and give glory to our Father in heaven (Acts 26:18; Matthew 5:16)? If he who was the Light of the world fought for his fire with fasting, is there something to be learned here for our flickering wicks?" – pg. 52

"The Spirit of God willed that the Son of God be tested on his way into the ministry, and he willed that Jesus triumph in this testing through fasting. It must not go unnoticed that Jesus triumphed over the great enemy of his soul and our salvation through fasting. ... Jesus began his ministry with fasting. And he triumphed over his enemy through fasting. And our salvation was accomplished through perseverance by fasting." – pgs. 54-55

"There are too many similarities between what is happening to Jesus here in the wilderness and what happened to the people of Israel to think it is a mere coincidence. God is teaching us something here. The Spirit of God led Jesus into the wilderness. ... It means that Old Testament shadows are being replaced with New Testament reality. It means that something greater than Moses and the wilderness and the Law and Joshua and the Promised Land is at stake here. It means that the time of fulfillment is at hand. The promise to Moses is coming true. 'The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him' (Deuteronomy 18:15). It means that God is now, with the incarnation of his Son, preparing to deliver his people – the new nation of his Son, preparing to deliver his people – the new Israel – from the Egyptian bondage of sin into the Promised Land of forgiveness and righteousness and eternal life. To do this he has sent a new Moses, or in this case, a new Joshua (Jesus reenacts both roles, and the name 'Jesus' is identical to 'Joshua' in New Testament Greek). This new Joshua stands as the head and representative of the whole new people that Jesus will gather from Jews and Gentiles. On their behalf Jesus will now be led by the Spirit into the wilderness. He will stay forty days to represent forty years. He will be tested as Israel was tested. And he will hunger as Israel hungered. And if he triumphs, he and all his people go safely into the Promised land of forgiveness and eternal life. ... It was a voluntary act of identification with the people of God in their wilderness deprivation and trial. Jesus was saying in effect, 'I have been sent to lead the people of God out of the bondage of sin into the Promised Land of salvation. To do this I must be one of them. That is why I was born. That is why I was baptized. Therefore I will take on the testing that they experienced. I will represent them in the wilderness and allow my heart to be probed with fasting to see where my allegiance is and who is my God. And, with the Spirit's help, I will triumph through this fasting. I will overcome the devil and lead all who trust me into the Promised Land of eternal glory.' In other words, Jesus' fasting was not only preparation for testing, it was part of his testing, in the same way that hunger was a test of faith for the people of Israel in the wilderness." – pgs. 56-57 

"The people of God are often called to go without the ordinary means of life. 'Many are the afflictions of the righteous (Psalm 34:19). 'Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom' (Acts 14:22). 'Even we ourselves groan ...  waiting the redemption of our bodies' (Romans 8:23). Fasting is a brief, voluntary experience of this deprivation. When we experience this willing forfeiture, the Lord reveals what is in our hearts. What are we controlled by? What do we value and trust? ... What are we slaves to? What are we most hungry for – food or God? Fasting is God's testing ground – and healing ground. Will we murmur as the Israelites murmured in the absence of bread? For Jesus the question was: Would he leave the path of sacrificial obedience and turn stones into bread? Or would he 'live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God'? Fasting is a way of revealing to ourselves and confessing to our God what is in our hearts. Where do we find our deepest satisfaction – in God or in his gifts? And the aim of fasting is that we come to rely less on food and more on God. That's the meaning of the words in Matthew 4:4, 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.' Every time we fast we are saying with Jesus, 'Not by bread alone, but by you, Lord.'" – pgs. 58-59

"Jesus hungered more for God and God's will than he did for God's wonders. ... what then was fasting for Jesus? It was both test and triumph. It was the test of his deepest appetite and the triumph of his hunger for God above all things." – pgs. 60-61

"The question is not of earning or meriting or coercing anything from God. The question is: having tasted the goodness of God in the gospel, how can I maximize my enjoyment of him, when every moment of my life I am tempted to make a god out of his good gifts?" – pg. 62

"The flesh resists this daily humiliation, first by a frontal attack, and later by hiding itself under the words of the Spirit (i.e., in the name of 'evangelical liberty'). We claim liberty from all legal compulsion, from self-martyrdom and mortification and play this off against the proper evangelical use of discipline and asceticism; we thus excuse our self-indulgence and irregularity in prayer, in meditation and in our bodily life. But the contrast between our behavior and the word of Jesus is all too painfully evident. We forget that discipleship means estrangement from the world, and we forget the real joy and freedom which are the outcome of a devout rule of life." – pg. 64, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Next post: Fasting | Fasting for the Reward of the Father

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