How do you fast 40 days, do you go vegan, do intermittent fasting, give up a food you love for 40 days, or something else?
Fasting is not a matter of not eating anything. This may work for a short period but not for an extended one.
In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks. 3I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.
Daniel 10:2-3
Fasting is a way to show God that what you are asking for is more important to you than your flesh, body, self. Do away with all for short fast and the cake, cookies, sweets, steaks, etc., and just eat enough bland food to survive for longer fast.
It is not necessarily limited to food. One thing also included is sex with the wife.
1 Corinthians 7:5 Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.
1 Samuel 21:4-5 And the priest answered David, and said, There is no common bread under mine hand, but there is hallowed bread; if the young men have kept themselves at least from women. 5And David answered the priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days, since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are holy, and the bread is in a manner common, yea, though it were sanctified this day in the vessel.
Daniel having been made a eunuch when taken to Babylon did not have to mention this.
There is another aspect to a fast.
Isaiah 58:6-7 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 7Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
This is the fast of the Lord, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Isaiah 58:8-11 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward. 9Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; 10And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: 11And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
Colossians 3:14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
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