Why fast? Isn’t it just starving yourself?

Most people today think skipping a meal is an emergency. The Bible treats fasting as normal. Jesus didn’t say “if ye fast.” He said “when ye fast” (Matthew 6:16).

Jesus fasted, and expected us to

Jesus “fasted forty days and forty nights” before His ministry started (Matthew 4:2). When the devil tempted Him with bread, He answered, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

He told His disciples how to do it: “when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance... But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret” (Matthew 6:16-18). And He said that once He was gone, “then shall they fast” (Matthew 9:15).

The early church did it. “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work” (Acts 13:2). God calls His people back the same way: “turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting” (Joel 2:12).

Some things only move with prayer and fasting

When the disciples couldn’t cast a demon out of a boy, Jesus said, “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21). Mark says the same: “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting” (Mark 9:29).

Most modern Bibles drop Matthew 17:21 completely and take “and fasting” out of Mark 9:29. It’s one more reason this site uses the KJV (see Isn’t the Bible full of contradictions?).

The fast God actually wants

Fasting isn’t a diet with a Bible verse on it. God says, “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6). It’s about getting free and drawing near to Him.

“Three meals a day is marketing”

Fittest Flat Earther (141,000 subscribers) reacted to a clip that says three meals a day isn’t nature, it’s marketing. He says he’s fasted for 15 to 20 years and works up to 70-hour fasts. His case:

• Your body repairs itself when it isn’t digesting. He calls it autophagy, your body killing off bad cells and repairing itself. Autophagy is real. The scientist who figured out how it works, Yoshinori Ohsumi, won the Nobel Prize for it in 2016. The video says it kicks in around 14 to 15 hours for women and 16 for men, and that water and electrolytes are fine while you fast.

• Breakfast was sold to us. He points to Edward Bernays, the father of public relations, who pushed bacon and eggs for breakfast in the 1920s and also ran the 1929 “Torches of Freedom” campaign to get women smoking. Bernays was related to Marc Randolph, who co-founded Netflix.

• Ease into it. He started at 16 hours and built up from there, and he says you can’t go all out at first.

The spiritual side

His favorite part isn’t the physical. He says fasting opens up a connection to the heavenly Father that he doesn’t have on a normal day. One commenter said fasting is in the Bible over and over, “plus the devil hates when you fast.” Another prayed to learn the truth about prayer and fasting that week, and the video showed up in her feed.

One thing to watch. He says that when he fasts and prays, he gets “downloads” that become his content. Fasting does draw you close to God, but anything that comes to you has to line up with Scripture. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). “Try the spirits whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1).

Your body is “the temple of the Holy Ghost” (1 Corinthians 6:19). Fasting is one of the ways you take care of it and bring it under God.

Say it like this

“Jesus fasted forty days, and He said ‘when ye fast,’ not ‘if.’ The early church fasted. Some things only move ‘by prayer and fasting.’ It’s not starving yourself. It’s telling your body it doesn’t run the show, and getting close to God. Start small, drink water, and pray while you do it.”

Keep reading: Do I have to do good works, or do I get to? · Isn’t the Bible full of contradictions? · I don’t believe in the devil