Receiving God’s best blessing from a fast requires solid commitment. Arranging
special time each day with God is absolutely crucial in attaining intimate communion
with the Father. You must devote yourself to seeking God’s face, even (and especially)
during those times in which you feel weak, vulnerable, or irritable. Read His Word and
pray during what were mealtimes. Meditate on Him when you awake in the night.
Sing praises to Him whenever you please. Focus on your Heavenly Father and make
every act one of praise and worship. God will enable you to experience His command
to “pray without ceasing” as you seek His presence.
As you enter this time of heightened spiritual devotion, be aware that Satan will do
everything he can to pull you away from your prayer and Bible reading time. When
you feel the enemy trying to discourage you, immediately go to God in prayer and ask
Him to strengthen your resolve in the face of difficulties and temptations.
The enemy makes you a target because he knows that fasting is the most powerful of
all Christian disciplines and that God may have something very special to show you
as you wait upon Him and seek His face. Satan does not want you to grow in your
faith, and will do anything from making you hungry and grumpy to bringing up
trouble in your family or at work to stop you. Make prayer your shield against such
attacks.
Do not become so caught up in praying for yourself and others that you forget about
simply reverencing and praising God. True spiritual fasting focuses on God. Center
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your total being on Him, your attitudes, actions, motives, desires, and words. This can
only take place if God and His Holy Spirit are at the center of your attention. Confess
your sins as the Holy Spirit brings them to your attention and continue to focus on
God and God alone so that your prayers may be powerful and effective.
A renewed closeness with God and a greater sensitivity to spiritual things are usually
the results of a fast. Do not be disappointed if you do not have a “mountaintop
experience,” as some do. Many people who have successfully completed extended
fasts tell of feeling a nearness to God that they have never before known, but others
who have honestly sought His face report no particular outward results at all. For
others, their fast was physically, emotionally, and spiritually grueling, but they knew
they had been called by God to fast, and they completed the fast unto Him as an act
of worship. God honored that commitment.
Your motive in fasting must be to glorify God, not to have an emotional experience,
and not to attain personal happiness. When your motives are right, God will honor
your seeking heart and bless your time with Him in a very special way.
