I understand the best-selling book, Eat—Pray—Live, is coming out soon as a movie starring Julia Roberts. They asked me first, but since I hadn’t read the book yet they had to go with her. But just as well, since now I’ll have time to write this enlightening blog. In my mind, the words Eat—Pray—Live stand in contrast to the three basic disciplines Jesus talked about in Matthew 6: Pray—Fast—Give. He said that when, not if, we do those three things with right motives (i.e., as personally ministering to and behalf of Jesus Himself) that we will reap untold rewards. Regarding fasting, I love how the book of Zechariah puts it:
“Was it really for me that you were fasting? And even now in your holy festivals, aren’t you eating and drinking just to please yourselves?” (7:5-6)
Ouch. Let’s not let do something as painful as fasting, and let it all be in vain, right? However, many Christians have erroneously believed that fasting is an OT thing of the past. We are so bad about that, aren’t we? We say we believe the Bible, but really, do we? Do we believe the things that happened in it should be regularly happening with us? Or have we relegated the weirder spiritual stuff as things that only happened in the “Bible Days”?
In fact, let’s digress deeply and do a quick self-assessment. I am going to rattle off a list of the Top Ten Weird Spiritual Stuff. Let’s see how many we believe are for today: Fasting, Demonic oppression, Tongues (oh come on, you just knew I had to throw that in), Healing (as a common and expected occurrence), Miracles-Signs-Wonders (as common and expected occurrences), God Speaking through gifts of Prophesy, Dreams, Visions, (all as common and expected occurrences--I have three boys so I am quite aware of the need to repeat myself to make a point), Words of Knowledge and Wisdom (knowing something without knowing how, and yes I am going to count those as two=).
Things on this Top Ten list were regularly experienced by the first Christians. That was a regular part of church life for them. They gathered together, praying and fasting, expectantly seeking the Holy Spirit to minister through them, of course in an orderly manner. (I threw that last part in for my sweet Baptist friends who are having cows right now. I know cuz’ I used to have some big ol' cows, too. Go ahead and have ‘em, but then re-read the book of Acts as if it’s your first time, k? Love you=)
So Hmmm. What happened? I’ll tell you what happened. The Sophistication Stronghold took over the Westernized churches. I just made that up. But if you think about it, we think of witnessing as intellectualizing about Jesus to others. Whereas, Jesus and His followers witnessed by DEMONSTRATING His powerful love. In fact, I wonder if there is a single instance in the New Testament of someone coming to Jesus without witnessing a powerful demonstration of His love and might? (i.e., miracle, healing, word of knowledge, etc.) I don’t know about you, but I’ll trade in my Sophistication for The Raw Power of God any day! I think the harassed and hurting masses, who need the true Jesus instead of our sophisticated religiosities, will agree with me.
And thus, the need for prayerful fasting. A church that fasts is a church that says, “We exchange our power for Your power. We lay down our ineffectual sophisticated solutions for the highly effectual Power of God. We lay down all that we have in order to gain all that You have, Jesus.”
Note: If you would like to read more about fasting, I believe I just figured out how to give you the link to a chapter out of my book The Coram Deo Secret. It’s an entire chapter about fasting with more links to more books. This makes me so happy—the thought of having to rewrite that big mama was making me weary and heavy laden. Ok, so let’s give this a whirl: http://marisarickerson.com/CDeoFasting.aspx
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