Fasting...How does GOD want it done?

Matthew 6:16-18 ESV / 2,088 helpful votes  

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Isaiah 58:3-7 ESV / 1,207 helpful votes

 

‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord? “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Joel 2:12 ESV / 1,106 helpful votes

 

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

Psalm 69:10 ESV / 887 helpful votes

 

When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach.

Matthew 6:18 ESV / 821 helpful votes

 

That your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Daniel 10:3 ESV / 820 helpful votes

 

I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.

Acts 14:23 ESV / 787 helpful votes

 

And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Isaiah 58:6 ESV / 637 helpful votes

 

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Luke 4:2 ESV / 598 helpful votes

 

For forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.

1 Corinthians 7:5 ESV / 588 helpful votes

 

Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Nehemiah 1:4 ESV / 557 helpful votes

 

As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

Matthew 4:4 ESV / 548 helpful votes

 

But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”