Fasting God’s Way
Have you ever had a moment when you noticed something was off? You wanted change, but yet things weren’t working? So you needed a different strategy to help things go another direction?
Hi everyone, I’m Julie, the creator of Salty & Lit, and we’re back with another segment. Today, we’ll be talking about fasting.
You see, fasting is a supernatural thing, in the fact that it involves spirituality. Everyone can fast, but there is a Bible focused way to fast, and we see that in Esther 4, but before we get deeper into this topic, let’s pray.
God, You are so good, and You are so righteous. Thank You for loving us and for being our friend. I welcome You into this time of us engaging with fasting, and I ask You to have Your way. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
In the book of Esther, we learn about Esther, a woman of Jewish descent, who becomes queen of Persia but hides her Jewish background. She doesn’t do it because of hatred of her background but due to the advice of her uncle Mordecai. Later, after discovering that one of the king’s princes wants to destroy the Jewish people, Mordecai tells her that she should go in front of the king to be on their behalf. Yet, in Persian culture, there’s a rule that people can’t just walk in before the king like that. If they do, the king has to extend his scepter to show he approves. If not, they die.
You see, even though Esther is a queen, she wasn’t allowed to just enter into the King’s place without his permission, and if she does, she’s risking her life. So she fasted for favor, so she can enter the king’s courts without receiving that negative result, and in Esther’s case, we see grounds on how to fast Biblically.
While preparing, I noticed God is like that. He’s not a God that will utterly destroy us if we come into His Presence wrong (He used to in the Old Testament), but because of His Son Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, we’re able to enter His throne of grace at any time. We have access. We can enter His Presence, at any time, that is for those who are His children, but we do need to come with respect. That’s what is called reverence. God desires us to respect Him and His protocol, and that takes me to fasting.
When fasting, there is a certain protocol one must follow. In Esther, we get a perfect example of what a fast entails: it has a reason, it has a duration, it has what one is abstaining from, and it has a person doing the fast. In Esther 4:16, it says (this is Esther talking), “ 16 “Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!” (NKJV)
In the fast, you see a cause: they are fasting for her to obtain favor from the king when she sees him. We also see how long: three days (night and day), and we also see what she is fasting from (food and water). Not technology or something else along that line. Fasting has to deal with food. Lastly,there are people fasting (the Jews, Esther and her maids). When you have these things, I think it’s a Biblical fast.
However, there may be moments when you enter a fast, and it’s not from God, as in He didn’t approve of it. We live in a spiritual world, meaning our enemy, Satan, will try to imitate the things of God. He can have people fasting, thinking they’re doing it for God, but they’re not. It’s so they can do his acts. This is not to scare you, but it’s true and to show you the reality of this fight we live in. He desires to be god, so he will try to do something spiritual to be god, but the thing is he’s already defeated at the cross, so he can’t and will never be god.
So with that, the enemy tries to get one to fast outside of what God wants: I endured something like that, and it caused a lot of health issues at the time, but thank God I’m okay now. Friend, fasting is big in the spiritual realm, it causes God to move in alignment with His will, but fasting also doesn’t force God to do something. God chooses to do what He does. Therefore, fasting is something that helps us, in that it shows we’re willing to sacrifice our luxury to get a result from God. And that’s why we fast: to expose the hidden things in us and get closer to God. You see God hates sin, and fasting exposes the flesh, in that it shows the wrongs in our lives, and when we control the flesh, we can do what more of being in the spirit.
So, how do we fast?
Find a day,
Set a time to start the fast and end the fast,
Decide what you’re fasting from (food or water. If you’re starting, I’d say start with food or water, not both), and
Read your Bible and pray while fasting
End it at the designated time.
Fasting saves lives, and if we see the value in it, God can do a lot of breakthroughs in us, if we allow Him to work through us. So I encourage you and myself to fast more often to bring breakthroughs because who “knows if perhaps we were made queens (or kings) for just such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14, NLT).
Works Cited
New King James Version. Bible Gateway, www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-King-James-Version-NKJV-Bible/#booklist. Accessed 27 Oct. 2025
New Living Translation. Bible Gateway, www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-Living-Translation-NLT-Bible/#booklist. Accessed 27 Oct. 2025
