Fasting or not?

Ever thought about why we need to fast? Wouldn't prayer (sincere one) be good enough for God to pay heed to? Why bother with fasting?

Remember after Jesus fasted for 40 days, the first temptation laid before Him was to turn the stones into bread. What did Jesus say in response to this? He quoted from Dt 8:3 saying, "it is written: 'man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God' "

The Scripture that Jesus quoted is only second half of the verse. See what we missed (Jesus surely didn't miss it, He could memorize it for sure), "He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you ..." (Dt 8:3a)

God teaches us humility by causing us to hunger. See that? This is why fasting is so important in prayer. Many say we need to be humble and experience God's strength in and through prayers (our dependence upon Him), but the fact is we aren't truly humble enough in prayer without fasting.

I think the Scripture has put the relationship of these few things as below.

Fasting -> Humility -> Prayer (total dependence on God)

I'm praying that as you pray and seek the Lord, do that with fasting. Will you?