5. When you fast
The third of Jesus' acts of righteousness is fasting. Like both giving and prayer, this should not be done to elicit admiration from other people; only the Lord needs to know.
When you fast, do not look sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. Matthew 6: 16 [NIV]
Like giving and prayer, Jesus assumes that fasting is something his followers will do. Yet fasting is something that, for many Christians (myself included) is rarely on the radar. In Scripture, fasting is carried out as penitence for sin, to accompany particular times of prayer and to discipline the body.
But, as with giving and prayer, Jesus tells us there is a reward for fasting. Jesus does not say what the reward is, nor whether it is to be given in the present or in the future. However, we don't pray or give or fast in order to earn a reward, but to seek God's will; so, I believe, the reward will be increasing fellowship with the Father, as we grow more and more into the likeness of the Son through the work of the Spirit.
If we do those things simply to be seen by other people, then we will never grow into the people God wants us to become.
Nowadays you hear very little talk in the West about eternal rewards and much talk about techniques to keep death at bay. [Philip Yancey]
Teach us good Lord, to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labour and not to ask for any reward save that of knowing that we do your will; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
David Long
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