Depending on your church background you may or may not have been exposed to the practise of fasting. Fasting was common in the first century but unfortunately it had been turned into an exercise in exhibitionism. Fasting is an important spiritual discipline in the believers hidden life with God but it is open to abuse. The hypocrites of Jesus day tried to look as gloomy as possible when they fasted, they even had special markings they would put on their faces to make it unmistakeable that they were doing so.

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Jesus states clearly that if you do your acts of righteousness for the applause of people, God will stand back and let you receive the praise you desire, from people and not from God. They have received their reward in full.

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Fasting as a spiritual discipline is really quite intriguing. In our day, it has largely gone out of fashion to our own detriment. Scripture teaches that a human being can be nourished by more than bread. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 in Matthew 4 when he says that man doesn’t live on bread alone but every word which come from the mouth of God. This is used to fend off the temptations of the evil one, when Jesus was hungry after fasting 40 days.

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It’s important to remember that the quote is referring to a time in Israel’s history when Yahweh provided for them manna in the wilderness. Manna was food, a food unlike any other which arrived daily from the heavens. The word in Hebrew means “what is it?" Manna was a digestible form of matter suited to the physical needs of human beings and produced directly by God’s action, or “word,” not by a process already in place in nature.

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In the same way there was also a sense that manna was the provision of clothing and footwear from the Lord that didn’t wear out over 40 years, provided as a direct result of God’s word.

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So can a human being be nourished by something more than simply food? That’s exactly what the New Testament suggests. At the end of Jesus’ poignant encounter with the woman at the well in John 4, he says to his disciples who are concerned about his hunger “I have some food you don’t know about.” Jesus also says “my food, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. (John 4:34). Fasting is both a spiritual discipline to train the body that the desire for food is not all controlling and also a deeply spiritual experience of potentially receiving nourishment directly from the Lord.

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It is to be done in secret. Are you picking up the vibe that a lot of the good done by a follower of Jesus is to be done in secret? Certainly, not exclusively, but Jesus clearly teaches to look out for the ulterior motive of the praise of people. The apostle Paul has a fantastic word for this motivation. In Greek it is ophthalmodoulian. He uses the word in Colossians 3:22 and Ephesians 6:6, it means “eye service." It concerns just as much our not doing things that are bad for fear of being seen as it does our doing what is good in order to be seen. Life in the kingdom is to be lived for the appreciation of an audience of one, God himself. It is the automated acts and thoughts which are birthed out of a heart renewed in God’s love and grace, learned in the way’s easy yoke, the way of the Master.