A Guide to Prayer and Fasting: Bible Examples and Meaning
Prayer is great and fasting is fantastic, but the discipline of using them together can help us make life in a sinful world more bearable by connecting us to God and drawing on His power instead of our own. First, let’s look at what fasting is. Many Christians picture fasting as a difficult undertaking. However, fasting can be a simple and powerful act that all can practice. Both short, occasional fasts and extended fasting can have powerful results.
What is Fasting?
Fasting is Biblical. Throughout the Old and New Testament eras and during the last 2,000 years, fasting has been a primary means of humbling ourselves before God. Fasting is a common practice that can be found in Scripture. It is voluntary and total abstinence from food for a specific amount of time or days, and it aims to devote oneself to prayer and seeking God. The ancient practice of fasting is a natural way to express your faith with your whole being body and spirit together whenever you experience a sacred moment that compels you to respond.
Fasting and Prayer
In the Bible, prayer and fasting are often linked together as spiritual disciplines and are frequently mentioned in conjunction with one another. While the specific practices and purposes of prayer and fasting can vary, there are some common themes and relationships between the two. Fasting is a way for us to reconnect and be with the Lord. So, below are a few reasons why prayer and fasting go together — as it should be:
1. Fasting and Prayer are Mentioned Together in Scripture
Both the Old and New Testaments feature multiple instances of believers practicing fasting and prayer together. Here are a handful of the examples I found:
The Israelites fasted and lifted prayers of praise and confession after sinning against God.
Esther fasts with Israel and prays for the strength to ask her husband to spare Israel from Haman’s plot of genocide.
David mentions praying and fasting for his enemies .
Daniel fasts and prays to lament Israel’s disobedience while exiled in Babylon and asks God to have mercy on His chosen people .
The prophet Anna fasted and prayed regularly for Israel, then prophesied to Mary and Joseph about Jesus .
Paul and Barnabas pray and fast to ask for guidance in appointing elders over the first-century church.
2. Fasting Prayers Serve Multiple Purposes
We live in a fallen world, so we need a lot of help, sometimes even just to make it through the day. God offers us that help by asking us to pray and fast. The verses I mentioned above showcase the variety of what prayer and fasting make possible for Christians.
Prayer is great, and fasting is powerful, but the discipline of using them together can help us make life in a sinful world more bearable by connecting us to God and drawing on His power instead of our own.
3. Prayer and Fasting Actually Works
From a practical standpoint, combining prayer and fasting can lead to staggering results. Let’s break down the examples given above to see how God worked through each of those instances:
God welcomed Israel back into His arms.
King Xerxes spared Esther when he had every right to kill her for approaching the throne uninvited and listened to her and helped her rescue Israel from Haman.
David doesn’t materially gain from praying and fasting for his enemies — quite the opposite, actually — but he reveals to the world that he truly is a man after God’s own heart.
God hears Daniel’s pleas and sends an angel to prophesy to him.
Anna gets to meet her Savior in person.
Paul and Barnabas found the men God wanted them to appoint as elders.
We should be praying and fasting whether or not we get the results we want; the hardships David faced in his life weren’t enough to stop him, so why are our hardships enough to stop us?
Seeing that those results are possible should be more than enough to encourage us to make prayer and fasting part of our lives the same way the heroes of the Bible did.
Power Through Prayer
The truth about prayer and fasting may make us want to practice these disciplines as often as possible without harming our bodies, but here’s the catch: They only work if you’re acting in service of God and not your ego or pride.
Jesus spoke against those who pray and fast for selfish reasons in the Sermon on the Mount: