This week will be our final week of team study and focus on the spiritual discipline of fasting. I pray it has been a good study and practice for each of you over the last 8 weeks. My hope is that, like with all of our spiritual discipline studies, you take what you have learned and keep applying it to your life in some way. Maybe there will be times in the future when you feel compelled by God to fast and spend some time in prayer or meditation in a more focused way with Him. Hopefully you’ll feel stronger and better prepared during those times because of this study we have gone through together. Also, and more importantly, hopefully you feel closer to God now because you have not only studied fasting further but you have participated in it and experienced it with Him. I think that’s something important that we should always be striving for. There is obviously even more about this discipline that we could study. I, personally, feel we have taken some good steps in the right direction. I have learned more about the importance of fasting, and why we do it, and I feel more connected with God because of it. I pray the same is true for you.
This week please choose the fast most appropriate, challenging, and beneficial for you and your time with God. It was meant to be a 40 hour fast this week. I know not everyone is at the same place in their study. Whatever you choose, please commit to it in prayer and thought before beginning it so that you can help guard yourself from temptation and weakness with the help of God. Preparation before time mentally, physically and spiritually, as we have learned, plays a large part in how well you do during your fast and how focused you are on God. As always, please be careful and take the necessary precautions to have a safe and healthy fast.
Our readings this week will come from scripture and from one short (3 page) chapter in the book “God’s Chosen Fast” by Arthur Wallis. We should ask ourselves why we would ever really choose to fast. When we do it, why do we do it? Do we truly do it for God? Is our focus around God, what He can do in our lives, and giving Him all of the glory? Is it sometimes only on what we can get out of it or what we want God to do for us? Do we only consider what we need in our own lives for ourselves? Please read the chapter titled “Fasting unto God.” Also read the following scriptures: All of Zechariah 7 and all of Isaiah 58. God has a lot to say here about where our hearts should be and what our goals should be when we fast.
In your journal this final week please write about how your fast went this week. How well were you able to keep a good focus? Also, what did you think of the readings this week and how did they affect you and your time of fasting and prayer? What, from this study, will you take with you and apply to other areas of your life? What questions do you still have about fasting and what would you still like to learn about it or experience from it in the future?
May God bless you and your time of fasting!