Week 16
Fasting before God
Matthew 6:16–18
“Your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
Matthew 6:16–18 (NKJV)
Jesus says ‘when you fast,’ placing this embodied prayer quietly within the life of discipleship. He does not command a spectacle. He describes a practice known to the Father and largely hidden from everyone else.
Fasting tells the truth that appetite is a gift but a poor master. By voluntarily setting aside food or another legitimate comfort for a time, we expose how quickly desire begins to command attention.
The hunger itself is not holiness. A missed meal can make us irritable, proud, or preoccupied. Fasting becomes Christian when hunger turns us toward God—when the body’s ache becomes a bell calling the whole person to prayer.
Jesus warns against making sacrifice visible. The gloomy face seeks payment in admiration. Secret fasting refuses that transaction. It asks for no human reward because it is offered within a relationship of love.
This discipline also teaches solidarity. Hunger can awaken us to neighbors for whom need is not chosen and does not end at a scheduled hour. What we refrain from consuming may become generosity toward another.
Fasting must be practiced wisely. Health, age, pregnancy, medication, and histories of disordered eating may make abstaining from food unwise. The Father is not honored by harm. Counsel and a different form of restraint may be the faithful path.
The purpose is freedom for attention. We step back from something that fills the senses so that our dependence upon God may be remembered. We discover that every appetite can be brought beneath Christ without being despised.
Wash your face, continue the day, and let the offering remain quiet. The Father sees not only the absence but the desire beneath it. The lasting reward is a heart less mastered by consumption and more hungry for God.
In Conversation with Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Bonhoeffer understood bodily discipline as a servant of readiness and obedience, never as spiritual achievement. The body is included in discipleship because Christ claims the whole person.
Hiddenness protects fasting from becoming self-congratulation. The practice remains directed toward God, freeing the disciple for prayer, self-control, and concrete love of the neighbor.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus,
Father who sees in secret, teach me to bring my appetites honestly beneath Your loving rule.
Guard me from pride, harm, and empty display. Use wise restraint to awaken prayer, gratitude, solidarity, and generosity.
Make me less governed by consumption and more deeply hungry for Your presence and Your righteousness. Amen.
Walk This Week with Christ
Let grace become obedience.
Return often to Matthew 6:16–18. Read slowly, listen for the call of Jesus, and carry His word into the choices before you.