Fasting to Feasting

In past times fasting involved great sorrow and despair. And there may be occasions still--especially when a person is facing a battle with sin over which he/she has had little victory--in which a fast may be one of repentance with cries for mercy and grace. But there is a distinct difference in the starting point of fasting for the Christian today.

Whereas in the past fasting emerged from a posture of desperate need and perhaps even overwhelming grief, today we can fast from a place of great joy and overwhelming confidence. The believer need never be in despair. He need never be in a place of wailing hopeless sorrow. He need never be in a place of emptiness.

For the believer does not fast as a have-not, but as a have. She fasts, not from a position of longing for love or grace or favor that she does not have, but from a position of knowing that He who did not spare His Son but delivered Him up for us all, will also graciously give us all things (Romans 8:32).

Here's what the fasting believer carries with him/her into each season of abstinence:
1. Confidence that the fast will not make God love him/her more, though it will help us to love God more. God cannot love us any more than He already does. Fasting (or not) does not affect the love of God for us; it affects only the love we have for God.

2. Confidence that our standing before God is not dependent on the frequency or quality of one's fasts. Our standing before God rests on the finished work of Christ in our behalf, and the perfect life and obedience (which includes flawless fastings) which Jesus performed while on earth and credits to our account upon our faith in Him.

3. Confidence that our fasting is inspired, sustained and made fruitful by the Spirit of Grace within us. We need not fast in our own strength, but as with all works we do, we may fast in the strength of Christ through His Spirit.

4. Confidence that as we draw near to God through Christ in fasting and prayer, God is going to prepare a feast of grace for us as we linger in less distracted fellowship in His presence.

Have you ever been so hurried and harried that when some good news or circumstaces arrived you had to stop what you were doing, pause in mid-activity, put things down, take a deep breath, and then pay attention to take it all in?

That's something of what Christian fasting is. It's stopping the mad rush and frantic pace to pause, stop what you're doing, put things down, take a deep breath, get focused, and enjoy the news of all that God is and has for us in Christ! Try that out this coming week and see if maybe it transforms your abstinence from fast to feast!

I close with another Piperian moment:

"What’s new about the fasting is that it rests on...[the] finished work of the Bridegroom. The yearning that we feel for revival or awakening or deliverance from corruption or the mere presence of the Bridegroom is not merely longing and aching... We have tasted the manifestation of Christ’s glory, and our fasting is not because we are hungry for something we have not tasted, but because the new wine of Christ’s presence is so real and so satisfying.

"We have tasted the powers of the age to come...and because the new wine of Christ's presence is so real and so satisfying...because we have tasted it so wonderfully by his Spirit...[we] cannot now be satisfied until the consummation of joy arrives...[w]e must have all he promised" (John Piper, Hunger for God).