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New Hope Fellowship

21 Days of Prayer & Fasting

21 Days of Prayer & Fasting

While the New Testament includes no mandate that Christians fast on certain days or with specific frequency, Jesus clearly assumes we will fast. It's a powerful tool that shouldn't be left unused. Although fasting is mentioned in several biblical passages, two key references appear just chapters apart in Matthew's Gospel. The first is Matthew 6:16–18, which follows Jesus’s teachings on generosity and prayer. Fasting is as integral to Christianity as giving to others and seeking from God. The crucial point here is that Jesus doesn’t say “if you fast,” but “when you fast.” The second is Matthew 9:14–15, which has been regarded as “the most important statement in the New Testament on whether or not Christians should fast today.” Jesus's response is a clear and emphatic, “yes!” As we begin 2025, we encourage everyone to join us in 21 days of prayer and fasting. Pick up your journal at the info center.

Locations & Times

New Hope Fellowship

5919 Antire Rd, High Ridge, MO 63049, USA

Saturday 5:00 AM

Fasting: Biblical fasting is refraining from food for a spiritual purpose.
Absolute Fast: This is where you don’t eat or drink at all.

Normal Fast: Abstaining from all food, but not from water.

Partial Fast: This would. Be more of a restriction of diet rather than complete abstention.
“We have nibbled so long at the table of the world that our soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great. If we are full of what the world offers, then perhaps a fast might express, or even increase, our soul’s appetite for God. Between the dangers of self-denial and self-indulgence is this path of pleasant pain called fasting. For when God is the supreme hunger of your heart, he will be supreme in everything. And when you are most satisfied in him, he will be most glorified in you.”
- John Piper, “A Hunger for God.”
I. Fasting reveals our dependence on other things
“More than any other single discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us. This is a wonderful benefit to the true disciple who longs to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. We cover up what is inside us with food and other good things, but in fasting, these things surface.”
- Richard Foster, “Celebration of Disciplines.”
“The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of His love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife. (Luke 14:18-20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not His enemies but His gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace the appetite for God Himself,
“Jesus said some people hear the Word of God, and a desire for God is awakened in their hearts. But then, “As they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life.” (Luke 8:14). In another place he said, “The desires for other things enter in and choke The Word, and it proves unfruitful.” (Mark 4:19). “The pleasures of life,” and, “the desires for other things” - these are not evil in themselves. These are not vices. These are gifts of God. They are your basic meat and potatoes and coffee and gardening and reading and decorating and traveling and investing and TV - watching and internet-surfing and shopping and exercising and collecting and talking.
II. Fasting creates a space to reorder our desires.
III. Fasting also creates intimacy with God
“We want to be a saint, but we also want to feel every sensation experienced by sinners; we want to be innocent and pure, but we also want to be experienced and taste all of life; we want to serve the poor and have a simple lifestyle, but we also want all the comforts of the rich; We want to have the depth afforded by solitude, but we also do not want to miss anything; we want to pray, but we also want to watch television, read, talk to friends and go out.”