This question has come up a lot lately, so I want to share something the Lord taught me about fasting. Last year, in the middle of the lockdown, God invited me into a three day fast with Him. It was hard and uncomfortable, but it also brought new meaning to the words, “He is with me.”
Because every time I got hungry—or during my normal meal times—I would put on worship music, or open my Bible, or put on a sermon. And every time, God would meet me there. He would give me a revelation during the sermon, or He would bring Scripture to life in a new way, or He would bring me to my knees during worship and just pour His goodness out over me.
And throughout all of it, He gave me this picture of a spiritual muscle. And it’s like He was showing me—this is how you strengthen a spiritual muscle. When you spend time with Him, feast on His Word, and drink His Living Water…your muscles will get healthy. And then, when you fast, it’s like you’re pulling out the heavy weights because you’re ready to get stronger.
Because putting down daily desires allows you to get strong enough to put down addictive ones. Destructive ones. The kind of desires that kill, steal, and destroy.
It’s the same muscle.
The spiritual muscle that allows me to say, “I am hungry, but I choose to fill up on You,” is the same muscle that allows me to say, “I want that thing—that drink, that rush, that feeling, that release, that pill—but I CHOOSE You instead, God.” That’s how you win the tug of war between flesh and spirit. You strengthen your spiritual muscles.
And during that time, God also taught me that the muscle that allows you to deny the DESIRES of the flesh is the same muscle that allows you to deny the SYMPTOMS of the flesh. Since I started regularly implementing fasting, I’ve personally been healed of migraines, pulled muscles, laryngitis... But do you know what other things I have been healed of? Pride. Hurt feelings. Jealousy. Because it is that same spiritual muscle of choosing that allows me to choose forgiveness over offense, freedom over death, and the Kingdom of God—joy, and peace, and righteousness—over the inferior reality of this realm.
So why do we fast? 1 Timothy 4 tells us to spend time and energy training ourselves for spiritual fitness. It continues on to say that physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is much more important because it promises a reward in both this life and the next. 2 Corinthians 12 reminds us that where we are weak, He is strong—and when we are weak we sense more deeply the mighty power of Christ living in us.
Which means that when our flesh is weak, His Spirit is strong. If you want to beat an addiction, or find a breakthrough, or see healing—sometimes it helps to weaken your flesh so that the Spirit can take over. Our physical weakness is a portal to God’s spiritual power.
I love Galatians 5:16-18, which (in the Passion translation) says:
“As you yield freely and fully to the dynamic life and power of the Holy Spirit, you will abandon the cravings of your self-life. For your self-life craves the things that offend the Holy Spirit and hinder him from living free within you.” [Those self-cravings are later listed: immorality, impurity, lust, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, fighting, jealousy, anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild partying.]
And the verse continues: “The Holy Spirit’s intense cravings hinder your old self-life from dominating you!” [The Holy Spirit’s cravings are also listed: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.]
So then, the two incompatible and conflicting forces within you are your self-life of the flesh and the new creation life of the Spirit. Which means there is a constant internal war between your flesh and your spirit.
And the one that’s going to win that battle will be the one you feed.
Jordan Roten is a speaker for The Gathering. For more related content, visit Jordan Roten’s blog, Grace Waves or follow on Facebook.
