Pursuit - Hungry for more - "Why Fast

``And it teaches us the difference between appetite and need. Appetite, it wants quick relief. Need, it wants lasting life. And Jesus said, I am the bread of life. Fasting does not make Jesus more satisfying, it removes what competes with him. In a culture that constantly feeds the body and distracts the soul, fasting remains a powerful way to remember who truly sustains us. [01:21:16] (35 seconds)  #NeedNotAppetite

God spoke to them while they were fasting, not because the fasting forced God, but because the fasting focused them. Prayer, it turns fasting from a discipline into a relationship. Without prayer, fasting becomes about endurance. But with prayer, fasting becomes about intimacy. And intimacy is the goal. Right? And it's not about to to show how strong we are, but it's about to experience how near God is to us. [01:12:54] (39 seconds)  #FastingIntoIntimacy

Fasting teaches us what actually satisfies us, and it helps us distinguish between appetite and hunger. Our appetite, all it wants is pleasure. Our hunger, it wants life. And God, he is the giver of life. And when our desires are reordered, our decisions follow. We begin to crave holiness more than our habits. We begin to crave peace more than what brings us pleasure, and we begin to crave God more than what gratifies our flesh. [01:16:02] (39 seconds)  #CraveHoliness

What fasting does is it creates space. What prayer does, it fills that space. So when we fast, we're not just giving something up. What we're doing is we're giving God more room. You know, we stop eating and we start seeking him. We start we stop consuming and we start listening. We stop filling ourselves with and we really start depending on God. [01:10:15] (31 seconds)  #CreateSpaceForGod

You know, we live in a world that teaches us to to satisfy every craving that we have immediately. If we're hungry, we eat. If we're bored, we pull out our phones and we scroll. If we feel uncomfortable, we distract ourselves with something. What fasting does is it pushes back against that culture. It teaches us that we are not ruled by our appetites. It teaches us that our bodies are not our masters. Who is? God. [01:01:05] (38 seconds)  #NotRuledByAppetite

When we are humble, it really changes how fasting feels. It stops being heavy, and it starts being holy. It stops being an obligation that we have to do, and it becomes an invitation of something that we get to do. And when fasting is done in humility, it really becomes a a quiet conversation between you and God. No applause. No spotlight. Just surrender. [01:08:23] (35 seconds)  #FastingIsAnInvitation

Because fasting, it's not meant to make us look holy. It's meant to make us more holy. And when fasting is done with humility, something happens. We stop focusing on ourselves, and we really start focusing on God. We we stop thinking about who sees us, and we start thinking about who's the one that sustains us. We stop trying to impress, and what we do is we simply draw near to God. [01:07:28] (34 seconds)  #FastingForTransformation

Fasting reminds us that food is not our deepest need. God is. And most of us, we don't realize how much of our lives are driven by comfort until that comfort is removed. When we fast, you know, we feel we feel things. We feel irritable. We feel restless. We feel weak. We feel those cravings. And those reactions, what they do is they reveal something important. [01:14:12] (32 seconds)  #FastingRevealsComfort