Fasting
Currently Reading: A Hunger for God
– by John Piper
The purpose of Christian fasting from Matthew 9:14-16. Our experience with Christ here on this earth is just a small taste of what is to come. However our longings for what is to come are deadened by the delights of this world. We fast to increase our longings for what is better over the temporary joys of this world.
Therefore, when I say that the root of Christian fasting is the
hunger of homesickness for God, I mean that we will do anything
and go without anything if, by any means, we might protect our-
selves from the deadening effects of innocent delights and pre-
serve the sweet longings of our homesickness for God. Not just
food, but anything. . . .
We have tasted the powers of the age to come, and our
fasting is not because we are hungry for something we have not
experienced, but because the new wine of Christ?s presence is so
real and so satisfying. We must have all that it is possible to
have. The newness of our fasting is this: its intensity comes not
because we have never tasted the wine of Christ?s presence, but
because we have tasted it so wonderfully by his Spirit, and can-
not now be satisfied until the consummation of joy arrives. The
new fasting, the Christian fasting, is a hunger for all the fullness
of God (Ephesians 3:19), aroused by the aroma of Jesus? love
and by the taste of God?s goodness in the gospel of Christ
(1 Peter 2:2-3).
Taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. – Psalm 34:8