The Fasting Practiceනියැදිය

Day 2: To Grow in Holiness

If I’m honest, I want a comfortable life. Don’t you?

But what did Jesus say? “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). And fasting is one of the best practices we have to cultivate a heart of self-denial in our overall life.

We are covering four reasons for fasting. And for today: To grow in holiness.

Let me start by telling you a bit more about what is happening in your body as you fast. First, your body is feeding on energy from the food in your stomach. Then, around 16 hours in, your body switches from burning glucose for energy to burning fat; what doctors call “ketosis,” which is incredibly good for you. And around 24 hours in, your body shifts into a state called “autophagy.” It begins to break down and cleanse your body of old, dead, or damaged cells, which cause maladies like cancer, aging, and chronic disease. Some doctors call autophagy your body’s way of “taking out the trash.”

But while fasting is very good for your overall health, when we as followers of Jesus engage fasting as a spiritual discipline, the ultimate aim is not to lose weight or clean out our gut microbiome. It’s to grow in holiness.

“Holiness” is a bit of a loaded word, but a shorthand way to understand a biblical theology of holiness is as wholeness. What health is to the body, holiness is to the soul; by that I mean, your whole person. And in the same way that fasting is your body’s way of purifying and purging your body of “zombie cells” that are killing you, so too, is fasting your soul’s way of purifying and purging your whole person of self-defeating cycles of sin and shame.

To make sense of this, let’s suss out a little more of a theology of the body from Paul’s letter to the Romans, 7:15-24. This is a famous passage because Paul seems to be naming the existential angst many of us feel around sin: What we want to do, we don’t do, and what we don’t want to do, we do! Do you ever feel this way?

And this self-defeating cycle that a lot of us get stuck in has to do with our bodies; Paul calls it “a body of death.” The word Paul uses for this warped part of our person is the “flesh,” or sarx in Greek. Augustine called the flesh our “disordered desires.” The call upon us as followers of Jesus is to take up your cross and put to death your flesh.

The question is, how? Ever tried to do this? Stop sinning? “I think I will just stop lusting from now on … .” How’s that working for you?

Later in Romans, Paul goes on to write: “If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” (Romans 8:13) Translation: We can’t use the flesh to defeat the flesh; willpower is not enough; we need the power of the Spirit. One of the ways we draw on the power of the Spirit is through fasting. Fasting is a way to feed your spirit and starve your flesh.

You see, at least a few things are happening in us as we fast. First, it’s revealing what’s in our hearts. Fasting teaches us so much about ourselves! Our unhealthy relationship to food, how weak we are, how much we need pleasure to be happy, how far we are from God — it’s very humbling. But as all this stuff comes up from the substrata to the surface of our heart — and it’s exposed in all its ugliness — we have the chance to offer it to God, and in doing so, be set free.

Third, it’s re-ordering our desires. When I fast, I notice my desires change. I find myself wanting to sin less, and wanting to be holy more. God is at work deep in my person, to do by his power what my willpower cannot possibly do: transform me.

On that note, finally, it’s drawing on the power of God to overcome sin. Disciplines like fasting are a way to bring your whole person back under the mastery or control of your will. But again, willpower alone is not strong enough to break the chains of the flesh. Fasting is (ultimately) about drawing your energy from the Holy Spirit’s power, from a relational connection to God himself.

If you wanted to summarize all that, you could just say fasting is a way to turn your body from an enemy into an ally in your fight against the flesh.

That’s why fasting is hard! Especially at first, because you are essentially picking a fight with your flesh! But the more you do it, and the more your flesh is weakened through self-denial and your spirit strengthened by connection to God, the more free you become.

Again, you don’t have to fast! But in the same way that there is no substitute for healthy eating and regular exercise for a flourishing body, there is no substitute for fasting and a life of self-denial for a flourishing soul. The Way of Jesus is the way of the cross; but the cross is always followed by the resurrection; death by life; Friday by Sunday. So, if you want to grow in holiness, if you want to “see God” in a greater way than ever before, practice fasting.