Bottom Line

Our motivation for fasting is to be transformation.

Fasting is voluntarily going without in order to go with God’s grace.

Fasting is not easy.

“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:16-18

Jesus expects his followers to fast.

Fasting is to be normative for followers of Jesus.

Jesus tells us not to fast for attention.

"Pretense & hypocrisy are the most devastating of all enemies to a healthy personality."
— Clarence Jordan

The problem with hypocrisy is that it involves wearing masks and erecting walls.

Jesus instructs us to trade our hypocrisy in for the discipline of secrecy.‍

"If our fasting is not unto God, we have failed."
‍— Richard Foster

What fasting can do

• Fasting creates time to attend to God
• Fasting fosters humility and dependency
• Fasting reminds us to hunger for what we most need
• Fasting fills us with God’s nourishment
• Fasting forms us from the inside out

Action Steps

1. Identify what you will fast from.
2. Make God the point of your fast.
3. Pay attention to what bubbles up in you.