The spiritual discipline of fasting has been on the mind lately. Fasting exists all around the world, in different religions and in different cultures. However, Christian fasting is powerfully unique. We live in a world that tells us to follow the cravings of our stomachs. We are born into a body that tells us we should instantly gratify these feelings and longings with people, position, possessions and powers. For the Christian with a new heart, a hunger for anything apart from God will inevitably lead to a fail… while a hunger for GOD himself will bring the soul a victorious WIN.
A good friend recently recommended to me John Piper’s A Hunger for God, on the discipline of fasting. Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter:
The more deeply you walk with Christ, the hungrier you get for Christ… the more homesick you get for heaven… the more you want “all the fullness of God”…the more you want to be done with sin… the more you want the Bridegroom to come again… the more you want a great awakening to God’s reality in the cities… the more you want to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ penetrate the darkness for all the unreached peoples of the world… the more you want to see false worldviews yield to the force of Truth… the more you want to see pain relieved and tears wiped away and death destroyed… the more you long for every wrong to be made right and the justice and grace of God to fill the earth like the waters cover the sea.
If you don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great. God did not create you for this. There is an appetite for God. And it can be awakened. I invite you to turn from the dulling effects of food and the dangers of idolatry, and to say with some simple fast:
“THIS MUCH, O GOD, I WANT YOU.”
Purchase a copy of the book here.
Or download it free online here.
by Chris Poblete
show hide 2 comments