The Most Important Part of Fasting
Apr 8 2025 - Eric Buresh
As our church body is working through our prayer and fasting guide, over half way now!, I wanted to revisit the concept of fasting and a beautiful passage in Isaiah 58: 3-9 that we shared a post on back in October 2024 (https://visitgracechurch.com/blog/1147).
A common question I’ve heard with folks talking about our shared fasting is what type of fast are you doing, i.e., what are you fasting from – food, social media, morning coffee, streaming TV, etc.? The thing(s) you are abstaining from are important, of course, but I think the more important question with a fast is what you are replacing those things with? A fast frees up temporal things: time, focus, money, etc. AND the point of the fast is to refill that empty space with something more eternally valuable. In a common example, we give up physical bread to create an emptiness that we then dedicate to filling with the Bread of Life (i.e., Christ). It’s not so much the abstaining that is valuable, in and of itself, it is the refilling.
Many of the things we abstain from in a fast also create space in terms of time and financial resources. Not watching a show or a game creates free time. Not having the coffee shop latte frees up several dollars. Not eating meals for a time does the same. So, the fast creates not only opportunities for greater communion with Christ (loving God), but it also creates outward focused opportunities as well (loving others).
This is where Isaiah 58 comes in to play. It teaches us the fast that God desires should have components that are outward focused. It is not a self-centered affliction, but an opportunity for outward, self-forgetting mercy. The people of Israel, in the days of Isaiah, had turned fasting into a hollow ritual. They did not refill their abstinence with anything valuable. They bowed their heads in suffering, but their hands remained clenched in greed and oppression. And the Lord rebuked them.
The fasting that the Lord chooses, “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry?” The fast is not intended to save money while the poor go hungry, but to give freely, as stewards of God’s bounty. “And not hide yourself from your own flesh”—what a searching statement! Many will give to distant causes but neglect the needs right under their noses because the close needs are often accompanied with messiness. True fasting seeks opportunities with the extra time and resources to remedy suffering at its doorstep.
When you fast as the Lord chooses, see what follows! “Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily” (Isaiah 58:8, NKJV). This is a divine promise: those who give of themselves shall not be left empty. Those who pour out blessings shall be filled. “Your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard” (Isaiah 58:8, NKJV).
Boiling it down, a fast that pleases God not only aims for closer intimacy with Jesus (the true Bread), but it also imitates Jesus. Fasting gives us more room to live as Christ lived! Did He not go about doing good? Did He not feed the hungry, heal the sick, and comfort the brokenhearted? If He, our Master, spent Himself in love, we should do likewise? I am inviting you to think of fasting in a whole different way: as a summons to love (both God and others). The fast that the Lord chooses is not a clenched fist but an open hand. It is not lips that cry in sorrow but hands that work in kindness. It is not found in self-affliction but in self-giving. In this, Christ Himself is our great example. He fasted from glory to create opportunity for us to feast upon grace. He emptied Himself that we might be filled. And He calls us to follow in His steps.