Fasting Day 4: Quotes About Fasting
Sometimes a quote or excerpt from someone can impact us more than volumes of books on a topic. So I thought I would share a few quotes in the event they inspire you as you fast.
Elmer Towns
“It’s important to note that religious practices such as fasting are less important than doing God’s will. As Micah 6:8 points out, what the Lord truly requires of us is devotion to Himself: “To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Fasting is not an end in itself; it is a means by which we can worship the Lord and submit ourselves in humility to Him. We don’t make God love us any more than He already does if we fast, or if we fast longer. As Galatians states, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage” (5:1). The goal of any discipline is freedom. If the result is not greater freedom, something is wrong.
“Even if we wanted to, we could not manipulate God. We fast and pray for results, but the results are in God’s hands. One of the greatest spiritual benefits of fasting is becoming more attentive to God—becoming more aware of our own inadequacies and His adequacy, our own contingencies and His self-sufficiency—and listening to what He wants us to be and do.
“Christian fasting, therefore, is totally antithetical to, say, Hindu fasting. Both seek results; however, Hindu fasting focuses on the self and tries to get something for a perceived sacrifice. Christian fasting focuses on God. The results are spiritual results that glorify God—both in the person who fasts and others for whom we fast and pray.”
Arthur Wallis
“Fasting is important—more important, perhaps, than many of us have supposed, as I trust this book will reveal. For all that, it is not a major biblical doctrine, a foundation stone of the faith, or a panacea for every spiritual ill. Nevertheless, when exercised with a pure heart and a right motive, fasting may provide us with a key to unlock doors where other keys have failed; a window opening up new horizons in the unseen world; a spiritual weapon of God’s providing, “mighty, to the pulling down of strongholds.” May God use this book to awaken many of His people to all the spiritual possibilities latent in the fast that God has chosen.”
~ From God’s Chosen Fast
Andrew Murray
[Regarding Matthew 17:14-21]:
“The faith that can overcome stubborn resistance such as you have just seen in this evil spirit [in Matthew 17:14-21], Jesus tells them, is not possible except for men living in very close fellowship with God and in very special separation from the world—in prayer and fasting. And so [Jesus] teaches us two lessons of deep importance in regard to prayer. The one so that faith needs a life of prayer in which to grow and keep strong. The other is that prayer needs fasting for its full and perfect development. Faith needs a life of prayer for its full growth.”
~ From Andrew Murray on Prayer, With Christ in the School of Prayer
Hudson Taylor
“In Shansi I found Chinese Christians who were accustomed to spend time in fasting and prayer. They recognized that this fasting, which so many dislike, which requires faith in God, since it makes one feel weak and poorly, is really a Divinely appointed means of grace. Perhaps the greatest hindrance to our work is our own imagined strength; and in fasting we learn what poor, weak creatures we are-dependent on a meal of meat for the little strength which we are so apt to lean upon.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“Jesus takes it for granted that his disciples will observe the pious custom of fasting. Strict exercise of self-control is an essential feature of the Christian’s life. Such customs have only one purpose—to make the disciples more ready and cheerful to accomplish those things which God would have done.”
~ From The Cost of Discipleship
John Wesley
“The man who never fasts is no more in the way to heaven than the man who never prays.”
~ From: Sermons on Several Occasions: “Causes of Inefficacy of Christianity”
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“[Fasting] is an help to prayer; particularly when we set apart larger portions of time for private prayer. Then especially it is that God is often pleased to lift up the souls of his servants above all the things of earth, and sometimes to rap them up, as it were, into the third heaven. And it is chiefly, as it is an help to prayer, that it has so frequently been found a means, in the hand of God, of confirming and increasing, not one virtue, not chastity only, (as some have idly imagined, without any ground either from Scripture, reason, or experience,) but also seriousness of spirit, earnestness, sensibility and tenderness of conscience, deadness to the world, and consequently the love of God, and every holy and heavenly affection.”
~ From The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 5, “Sermon XXVII, On Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount”
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“But, if we desire this reward, let us beware . . . of fancying we merit anything of God by our fasting. We cannot be too often warned of this; inasmuch as a desire to ‘establish our own righteousness,’ to procure salvation of debt and not of grace, is so deeply rooted in all our hearts. Fasting is only a way which God hath ordained, wherein we wait for his unmerited mercy; and wherein, without any desert of ours, he hath promised freely to give us his blessing.”
~ From The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 5, “Sermon XXVII, On Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount”
C.S. Lewis
“It is impossible to accept Christianity for the sake of finding comfort: but the Christian tries to lay himself open to the will of God, to do what God wants him to do. You don’t know in advance whether God is going to set you to do something difficult or painful, or something that you will quite like; and some people of heroic mould are disappointed when the job doled out to them turns out to be something quite nice. But you must be prepared for the unpleasant things and the discomforts. I don’t mean fasting, and things like that. They are a different matter. When you are training soldiers in maneuvers, you practice in blank ammunition because you would like them to have practices before meeting the real enemy. So we must practice in abstaining from pleasures which are not in themselves wicked. If you don’t abstain from pleasure, you won’t be good when the time comes along. It is purely a matter of practice.”
~ From God in the Dock
David R. Smith
“A selfish person is unable to enjoy the gospel; a Christian is someone who has begun to deny himself, and is in the continuous process of denying himself. Jesus said “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” Self-denial is not limited to one particular kind of giving; it embraces all personal disciplines. Fasting is only one discipline; nevertheless, it is self-denial. This does not mean that to fast is to embrace legalism; it is gospel liberty which encourages us to deny ourselves.”
“Fasting does not create faith, for faith grows in us as we hear, and read, and dwell upon, God’s Word; it is a work of the Holy Spirit to bring faith to God’s people. However, fasting has the capacity to encourage faith in the one who is involved in this discipline. It seems as though the neglect of self feeds the faith which God has implanted in the hearts of born-again believers. This doesn’t mean that those who eat the least have the most faith; such a view is not only untrue, it is extremist. It is simply that regular self-denial has its benefits, and one of these is seen in a personal increase in faith.”
Wesley Duewel
“You and I have no more right to omit fasting because we feel no special emotional prompting than we have a right to omit prayer, Bible reading, or assembling with God’s children for lack of some special emotional prompting. Fasting is just as biblical and normal a part of a spiritual walk of obedience with God as are these others….
“How do you take up your cross? To take up a cross is not to have someone place the cross upon you. Sickness, persecution, and the antagonism of other people are not your real cross. To take up a cross is a deliberate choice. We must purposely humble ourself [sic], stoop down, and pick up the cross for Jesus. Fasting is one of the most biblical ways to do so….
“Fasting can deepen hunger for God to work. Spiritual hunger and fasting have a reciprocal power. Each deepens and strengthens the other. Each makes the other more effective. When your spiritual hunger becomes very deep, you may even lose the desire for food. All of the most intense forms of prevailing prayer . . . can be deepened, clarified, and greatly empowered by fasting….
“Fasting is natural when you are burdened sufficiently, wrestling with mighty prevailings, and warring in hand-to-hand conflict with Satan and his powers of darkness. Fasting becomes sweet and blessed as your hunger reaches out to God. Your hunger gains tremendous power as you fast and pray—particularly if you set apart time from all else to give yourself to fasting and prayer. It can become a spiritual joy to fast….
“Fasting feeds your faith. . . . Your confidence begins to deepen. Your hope begins to rise, for you know you are doing what pleases the Lord. Your willingness to deny self and voluntarily to take up this added cross kindles an inner joy. Your faith begins to lay hold of God’s promise more simply and more firmly.”
~ From Mighty Prevailing Prayer
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“Fasting is still God’s chosen way to deepen and strengthen prayer. You will be the poorer spiritually and your prayer life will never be what God wants it to be until you practice the privilege of fasting.”
Edith Schaeffer
“Is fasting ever a bribe to get God to pay more attention to the petitions? No, a thousand times no. It is simply a way to make clear that we sufficiently reverence the amazing opportunity to ask help from the everlasting God, the Creator of the universe, to choose to put everything else aside and concentrate on worshiping, asking for forgiveness, and making our requests known—considering His help more important than anything we could do ourselves in our own strength and with our own ideas.”
~ From The Life of Prayer
Bill Bright
“Fasting with a pure heart and motives, I have discovered, brings personal revival and adds power to our prayers. Personal revival occurs because fasting is an act of humility. Fasting gives opportunity for deeper humility as we recognize our sins, repent, receive God’s forgiveness, and experience His cleansing of our soul and spirit. Fasting also demonstrates our love for God and our full confidence in His faithfulness.”
~ From The Coming Revival
Question: Was there a quote that challenged or inspired you? If so, how do you think it will impact your fast going forward?
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- Inspired and Impacted: Quotes About Fasting and Prayer (Part 2)
FROM THE ARCHIVES
- Countering the Enemy’s Offensive (Part 1): Don’t Stop Fasting Prematurely
- Fasting Day 4: Andrew Murray on Prayer & God’s Holiness
- Fasting Day 4: The Hungry Handmaid of Faith
- An Outline for Repentance (Part 2): Sins of Omission
- Fasting Day 4: Called to be Holy
- Fasting Day 4: Outer Discipline, Inner Result, Eternal Reward
- Praise You, Jesus: Alphabet of Praise, Part 1
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Dear Natalie
Praise the LORD!
Thank you very much for all these quotes.My son Lazarus Joseph completed his 40 days full fasting on 12.03.15 and we had fasting break festival on 13.03.15. Our church believes in fasting and praying. Every year in summer season when summer vacations starts our church HOUSE OF PRAYER CHURCH, MLG ROAD, NALGONDA,TELANGANA STATE in INDIA starts the full(no food is taken) fasting prayers where normally 300 to 400 people fast and pray. You may follow us on FB:House Of Prayer Church – nlg or visit our blog:hopc-nlg.blogspot.in
I am glad I found this website.
GOD BE WITH YOU ALL THE TIME
I would like to add one more that was orginally shared by D.L. Moody "“If you say ‘I will fast when God lays it on my heart,’ you never will. You are too cold and indifferent to take the yoke upon you.”