“Living A Fasted Lifestyle"

“Elder Tanya C. Brown" 

Do you want to go deeper in your relationship with God, but something keeps blocking you?

I never wanted to admit the fact that my eating habits had everything to do with blocking my relationship with God.

A fasted lifestyle can make a radical difference in your life and deepen your walk with God quickly. When you fast, your physical hunger can stir your spiritual hunger and foster greater intimacy between you and the Lord.

Biblical Fasting is abstaining from food for a period of time so you can focus on spending time with God. Reading God’s word and spending time in genuine prayer will increase your awareness of God’s presence in your life. Fasting also increases your faith and adds power to your prayers. Anytime you deny yourself certain delicacies in exchange for God’s presence He takes notice.

Fasting humbles our soul, and makes us more sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s presence and promptings, yet most of us never truly experience that intimacy. Why? We eat too much and too often. We never give our internal organs a rest and we never put ourselves in a position of lack to truly hear from God. Gluttony is the killer of spiritual intimacy. Often we are ‘full of roast beef and unbelief’. Gluttony causes us to become dull, sleepy and spiritually complacent. Fasting sharpens our sensitivities, both biologically and spiritually speaking. When we seldom or never fast our bellies become our gods to whom we sacrifice all day long.

We eat to satisfy our emotions and allow food to take the place that God wants to have in our lives. When we are hurt, discouraged, sad, angry, or bored the first thing we do is mindlessly and habitually reach for food. The Lord spoke to me once and said, “If you would reach for me the way you reach for food you would satisfy the real craving within.” Once you stop feeding every craving you will finally crave the Lord. When you allow yourself to feel some hunger your hunger for God will increase.

Early in my walk with God I discovered the biblical power of fasting and prayer. I fasted often and would experience incredible moments in God’s presence. Those moments of unparalleled peace, joy, and intimate fellowship were intense, transformative and incredible. Yet every time I ended the fast my results would disappear. The reason was because when I came off the fast I did nonstop snacking and my hunger for God and for spiritual things dwindled while my desire for comfort and satisfaction of the flesh increased.

Two years ago I cried out to God asking him to sustain my results. That’s when he showed me the difference between periodic fasting and living a fasted lifestyle. Periodic fasting is absolutely of the Lord. But that year I realized that he calls us to live a fasted lifestyle, to deny yourself daily so that your stomach is not your God and to focus on his presence. It has been life changing.

A fasted lifestyle is a daily decision to deny yourself certain foods and to keep your appetite under the control of the Holy Spirit. A fasted lifestyle means that I don’t have to eat til I’m bursting at the seams and I don’t have to eat everything I see. It means every day there is some self denial IN EXCHANGE for His fellowship.

I have engaged in many different kinds of fasts over the years; dry fasting, water fasting, the Daniel fast, the one meal a day fast and even a 40 day liquid fast. Honestly, I have gotten results with each of them when I truly committed to the fast (with no cheating). The results were amazing from breakthrough revivals around the country, to experiencing both corporate and personal healings and victories. Fasting works.

Biblical fasting is not just about cutting out food, but about replacing eating with praying and Bible reading. It’s about seeking the Lord’s presence instead of food. It’s about filling that time and that hunger with God. If you want to regain your spiritual hunger for God, fast!! And whether you start with missing one meal a day or you fast twice a week or longer, spend that time in prayer, reading the word and basking in the presence of God. You can live without eating every single meal every single day, but you will miss out on the unique experience of power and the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life without a fasting lifestyle. Remember, Jesus said, Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God!! (Matthew 4:4) It’s not what goes into your mouth that gives you life, but what comes out of God’s mouth. Lord, help us to say as Job said, I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. (Job 23:12)