Fasting: When God renovates and redecorates our inner worlds
“Fasting has, throughout the Bible, been linked with an extra dimension of power.”
“God always works from the inside out and He is never just after what we can DO for Him. He is after our hearts and what we can BE.”
“Fasting is not so we can get more of God; we fast so God can get more of us.”
^ Excerpted from 21 Days of Seeking Him, by Hillsong Church, Copenhagen. *
I’ll say it again, “We fast so that God can get more of us.”
And what does God do with us when he has more of us?
Well, let me put it this way:
In former times, under King Solomon, the Israelites were pursuing this wild notion of David’s:
to build a temple in the center of their civilization,
where God, himself might like to come,
and dwell,
and be present among his people.
Naturally, in order to invite God to be there, it would have to be SENSATIONAL...
And it was!
Pages and pages of the Bible describe the exquisite tapestries, the intricate wood carvings, the fountains, the pools, and the tons upon tons of precious metals and stones that were brought in to adorn this special place. When all was said and done, this temple was a breathtaking masterpiece of architecture and artistry.
Even so.... when there was no more left to do,
and the time finally came to invite God to set his Presence there, Solomon had this prayer to pray:
“But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple I have built!”
II Chronicles 6:18
The whole prayer is a beautiful invitation, of an earnest and yet unworthy host, and his God who condescends, with a great love, to be present with the ones who seek him.
Fast forward to our days, when that elaborate temple of wood, stone, silver and gold is no more, but another kind of temple,
as wildly imagined as the first,
has been consecrated by God himself:
The Prophet Haggai foretold of that temple in the ~500s BC:
‘The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace’ Haggai 2:9
and in the ~50s AD, the Apostle Paul was still breaking the news, live:
“Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” 1 Cor 3:16
It’s as insane, and as breathtaking as the first Temple... more so. As God breathes his own Spirit into US.
And so how can we not be like Solomon, asking, “How? How God, can your great presence possibly be contained here with me?”
And here we can understand Fasting a little more.
Let’s give God more of us, until we’ve really learned how to give him All of us: Wall to wall, ceiling to floor; every corner, nook and cranny.
Because when the indwelling God has more of us, do you know what he does?
He gloriously renovates and redecorates our inner worlds.
He gives us new hearts, new ears, new understanding, and new, spiritual eyes.
Imagine seeing how He sees!
Imagine how, from where He stands, Love falls like sunbeams, casting everything, and every person in its soft glow.
Imagine how sheer the veil between heaven and earth would look to us.
And then See it!
Give him more of you, and See how the reigning presence of the most awesome King lights up Earth, Heaven and the Highest Heaven in technicolor.
