Nearer to God through Fasting and Prayer
A few more days remain in our first church-wide fast of the New Year. Anytime a people commit themselves to seeking the Lord, there will be spiritual warfare to disrupt, divide, or distract. The enemy knows the long history of God’s people finding breakthrough through fasting, and he seems to oppose us with special urgency during these times. But all praise be to our Lord, who promises that we will find him when we seek him with all our hearts (Jer 29:13), he rewards those who earnestly seek him (Heb 11:6), and if we come near to him he will come near to us (Jas 4:8).
Nearness to God — what could be greater than close fellowship with the eternal God? To hear and follow his shepherd’s voice as one of his sheep? Sitting at his feet to learn like Mary? Serving alongside him distributing fishes and loaves to the hungry? To be called away to the mountain or the garden to spend time in prayer with him?
All the preparation, and programs, and plans we make in our personal or church lives are hollow unless they gain David’s “one thing” — nearness to the Lord himself:
One thing I ask from the Lord,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple. (Ps 27:4)
King Solomon had taken seven years to build a temple for the Lord, spending a fortune and using thousands of laborers and craftsman to complete it. But until the fire came down and consumed the sacrifice and the glory of the Lord filled the temple, it was not yet a place for God’s Name and presence to dwell. (2 Chron 7)
About a thousand years later on the day of Pentecost, the disciples received the promised Holy Spirit from the ascended Jesus. Once again fire fell from heaven signifying the presence and glory of the Lord coming to dwell in his temple — this time not a building of stone and wood, but the hearts of his believers. (Acts 2)
Both times the temples were consecrated through preparation and prayer, by Solomon and the priests under the old covenant and by the believers who joined together constantly in prayer under the new covenant.
Fasting and prayer create space in us for a fresh outpouring of his Spirit. We remove distractions and recalibrate our hearts to focus on him. By denying ourselves even wholesome and necessary things like food, we express our dependence on the Voice of God. Our flesh rebels but we choose to let our spiritual hunger for the Bread of Heaven dominate our natural desires. We are no more loved nor valuable if we fast than if we do not, but in fasting we position ourselves to recognize and experience His presence.
The great hymn writer Charles Wesley penned these words inspired by Psalm 84:
How lovely are Thy tents, O Lord!
Where’er Thou choosest to record
Thy name, or place Thy house of prayer;
My soul outflies the angel choir,
And faints, o’erpowered with strong desire,
To meet Thy special presence there.
In the remaining days of the fast, let us make space for Him and invite His presence to fill us and to feed us. Let us offer ourselves, both individually and corporately as a church body, as temples for the Spirit to indwell with fresh purity and power. There is no treasure greater than His special presence!