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Ramadan Mubarak, Day 6: Sincerity in Fasting

On taking good intentions and making them larger than God Himself

by Adam Jones

I enjoy fasting. I mean, I enjoy it and I hate it. For someone who loves food, fasting becomes a major disruption to my rhythms and routines.  Even now, as I write this, I am watching the clock; waiting for it to strike noon so I can eat my lunch. Fasting is my way of breaking those habits. 

However, one thing I am learning is that God is not as impressed with the act of fasting as I am. It’s not that He doesn’t care. It’s just that He knows just how quickly my piety can lead to self-righteousness. I, like many others, end up suffering from the same affliction that man has been battling since very early in our existence: taking good intentions and making them larger than God Himself. 

Jesus spoke about this to the crowds in what most call ‘The Sermon on the Mount.’  We read in the book of Matthew (Injil, chapter 6:16-18) Jesus essentially saying that when we fast, don’t parade it around for everyone to see. When we do so, though we give up eating, we end up feeding our ego with our own praise. Jesus says, instead, to make sure no one even knows you are fasting. That way you can be sure that you are fasting for the right reasons. 

It is not enough to simply fast. In fact, we only find one required fast in the Bible and that was in the Tawrat (Leviticus 16:29-31). This was on the Day of Atonement, a day that was set aside for Jews to seek forgiveness for their sins. However, we find many examples of others voluntarily fasting throughout the Tawrat, the Zabur, and the Injil and for many different reasons. Some were looking for healing. Some were fasting for protection or deliverance. Still others wanted closeness to God. 

There is no doubt that fasting has a lot of benefits, but we have to ensure we are sincere in our fasting. No passage in the Bible speaks to that more clearly than in the book of Zechariah of the Tawrat. The Jews, all the way back in the 6th century BC, had just returned to Jerusalem from their captivity in Babylon and were tasked with rebuilding the temple. 

In their resettling, some were inquiring if they should keep some of the traditions they started while they were in captivity. Outside of the Day of Atonement that was commanded in the Law of Moses, the Jews began observing other significant days in their history with fasts. One of those fasts was to remember the day the temple was destroyed by the Babylonians (Zechariah 7:1-10). 

Now that they were back from captivity and rebuilding the temple, they wondered, ‘Should we keep this fast?’ God answered them through Zechariah with these striking words, “When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves” (Zechariah 7:5-6)? 

Great. You kept these fasts for the last 70 years. But did you even do it for the right motives and reasons? It is crucial that we see God as One who doesn’t want just good for us. He wants the best for us. And the best for us is a heart that is totally committed to Him. God is not interested in those who outwardly do righteous things, but inwardly seek themselves. No, He wants us to seek Him, because it is in Him and not in man (whether that be ourselves or others) that we will find wholeness, peace, and true salvation. 

The scary part of God is that He wants it all. It is not our actions that He cares about the most. It is our hearts. He knows that if our hearts are submitted to Him, our actions will reflect that.  The God of the Bible (YAHWEH) is not a distant God. He is all around us and longs for us to recognize and enjoy just how close He is. God is also all-knowing. He knows our hearts. We simply cannot keep secrets from Him. In that, He knows the emptiness we will eventually feel by pursuing righteousness ourselves. We simply cannot do enough good to outweigh our sinful hearts. 

What He desires for us is that we believe in our hearts that only a punishment so great as hell could be taken away by a God that is greater. You and I are not meant to make right our wrongs. Even in pious deeds like fasting, it is too easy for our hearts to corrupt them and take the focus off God. This is why God came to us as a man. He came to teach us that our actions must be dictated by pure hearts. He came to satisfy our debts that our sin created. He came to fulfill the law, knowing that we never could.

 

*If you would like to participate in a Bible study on this subject and similar ones, email us at comparingfaith@gmail.com or text 313.485.7153.

  • 21 May 2018
  • Author: Guest Blogger
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