The goal of fasting is to draw near to God.
Types of Fasts
The Hebrew word for fasting literally means to cover the mouth.
Selective Fasts
This type of fast involves removing certain elements from your diet. One example of a selective fast is the Daniel Fast, during which you remove meat, sweets, and bread from your diet and consume water and juice for fluids and fruits and vegetables for food.
Complete Fast
The Hebrew word for Fasting literally means to cover the mouth. This is the type of fasting we see most modeled in Scripture, including by Jesus and Moses. In this type of fast, you drink only liquids, typically water with light juices as an option. If you choose to do a prolonged complete fast, be sure to speak with your doctor ahead of time.
Partial Fast
This fast is sometimes called the “Jewish Fast” and involves abstaining from eating any type of food in the morning and afternoon. This can either correlate to specific times of the day, such as 6:00 am to 3:00 pm, or from sunup to sundown.
Soul Fast
This fast is a great option if you do not have much experience fasting food, have health issues that prevent you from fasting food, or if you wish to refocus certain areas of your life that are out of balance.For example, you might choose to stop using social media or watching television for the duration of the fast and then carefully bring that element back into your life in healthy doses at the conclusion of the fast.
Fasting helps me learn to say 'No' to what I want now, so I can say 'Yes' to what matters most.
We encourage fasting for 21 days each year in the month of January. This is part of our 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting season.
You may also choose to fast at other times during the year for your own spiritual development. It’s very typical to fast a single meal, a whole day, or three days or more.