Why does fasting fights against unbelief?

  BY Argie Simonis

Why does fasting fights against unbelief?

First, we need to understand where unbelief comes from.

"So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Rom. 10:17

"According as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue:" 2Pet. 1:3

Our faith is directly connected to the knowledge we have and to what we think. That means that if we know about God but do not respond properly on this knowledge, we will not gain any faith.

~ As faith comes by hearing God (Rom. 10:17), so unbelief comes by hearing the world. Unbelief is directly linked to what we hear and think, just like our faith. ~

"For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." Rom. 8:6

The death that Paul is talking about here does not only refer to physical death, but also to spiritual death, which is our separation from God:

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Rom. 6:23

That's what unbelief does. It causes death because it keeps our mind attached to the things of the flesh and not of the Spirit.

Some people in the natural can be a role model of a christian. They don't steal, they don't lie, they don't do wrong, they live godly lives, but at the same time they can be completely carnal christians because their mind is not dominated by the spiritual truths that the Scriptures reveal to us, but, let me read it to you how Paul describes it:

"​Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind," Col. 2:18

And as Jesus said:

"Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which you have delivered: and many such like things do you." Mark 7:13

Such carnal people keep their minds attached only to the physical, ignoring the spiritual, which is essentially the supernatural part, thus allowing doubt and unbelief to enter their hearts and prevent their faith from bearing fruit.

That is why fasting is so important in fighting this unbelief. 

~ When we fast, we take all our attention from the physical world and turn it to the spiritual. ~

Our body will react because it wants food and our senses will also react because they were interrupted from their daily routine.

It is very important to understand that this is not only about abstinence from food, but about general abstinence from the things of the world (work, entertainment, other activities) and our complete devotion of our heart and mind to the Lord.

That is why I emphasized that fasting is much more than going without food.

The devil attacks us through our natural senses and makes us believe more in what we see with our natural eyes than what we see with the eyes of our faith:

"But strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." Heb. 5:14

One way to achieve this, to have our senses exercised to discern between good and evil, is fasting.