What is fasting?

  • The practice of fasting is the act of abstaining from food to connect our bodies with our pursuit of God.

  • This bold claim summarizes our culture's theme: “nobody tells me what to do.” It matches our cultural identity of independence from everyone and everything. Dependence and control under someone or something are seen as weakness. However, Jesus communicates the opposite message of this. “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Jesus is not only our teacher and savior, but he is also our king and provider. Fasting is the physical confession of our need for, our dependence on, and our submission to Christ. As we fast, we seek:

    Presence—Fasting connects our bodies with our beliefs. As we abstain from food, we offer our whole selves to God and seek more awareness of his presence.

    Purity—“Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things” (Philippians 3:19). The practice of fasting guides us to be led less by the desires of our flesh and more by the desires of the Spirit.

    Power—Fasting is a physical confession that we are dependent on the power, presence, love, control, etc. of God. We run to God with our prayers while fasting as a physical display that we trust in his power and provision over our own.

    Perspective—As we await the return of Jesus, we live in a world still corrupt with sin, injustice, and poverty. When we fast, we physically stand with those who are in need and are led to act out justice.

  • We are not just persons who have bodies; we are bodies. We can imagine that our body is just a shell of who we actually are; however, we have been and always will be embodied beings created by God. Much of our Christian spirituality focuses on the mind. We need practices that take the content of our beliefs and incorporate our whole selves. Fasting, through our stomach, teaches us how to worship God with our whole body. This leads us to the reminder that Jesus calls us to follow him with our entire lives.

  • Fast from Food—When we abstain from food our hunger reminds us of our need. We set times to abstain intentionally to lead us to prayer, awareness, and dependence. You can go to our fasting packet for more information.

    Fast from Media—Our media devices and platforms create an abundance of distraction. The amount of time they demand take us away from sitting in the presence of God. These devices also make us feel “like God” by giving us a false sense of omnipotence (all in control), omnipresence (all present in all places), and omniscience (all knowing). We abstain from these devices as a confession of need and an act of setting our attention on God.

  • Fasting does not earn more favor from God. We are saved by grace, sustained by grace, and sanctified by grace. We cannot earn more favor from God. God blesses fasting, not because we earn from him, but because we rely and depend on him.

pray and decide

Spend time in prayer and decide what you will focus your fast on. Fasts typically fit into one of these categories:

  • Focus your fast on seeking the presence of God. Offer your attention and your whole self to him. Spend intentionally time praying with God and writing how He is displaying himself.

  • Focus your fast on release of sinful habits. Pray that God rids of temptation and your submission to temptation. Ask God to build self-discipline in you and to grow the fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5.

  • Focus your fast on praying on behalf of others or yourself. Pray for healing, salvation, for miracles, etc.

  • Focus your fast on praying for those in need. Another step you could do is take the money you would have used on food or time you would have used on a device to serve or give to those in need.

fasting worksheet

We created a Fasting Worksheet to help you work through how to fast. The goal of this worksheet is to give a practical framework to plan your fast. For fasting to impact us, we must implement it. Write a simple plan here and then practice it.

Additional resources

If you want to know more about the practice of fasting, here is a compiled list of helpful resources. Because this list has many options, it can feel intimidating on where to start. Our encouragement is just to start somewhere. Pick one that seems appealing and start there.