What God’s Word Says About Food Muestra

Having a strong personal aversion to discomfort, I greatly admire those with the fortitude to push their bodies to the limit. Soldiers who fight through the rigor of basic training have my mad respect. Triathletes with the inner grit required to swim, cycle, and run mile after mile earn my genuine awe.

Though you won’t catch me “pushing through the pain” or winning feats of strength, I hope to become a spiritual triathlete, capable of running the race of faith with great endurance.

Read Matthew 4:1-11. Three observations jump off the page at me about the timing of Jesus’ wilderness fast.

First, the fast followed a moment of remarkable victory. Matthew 3 records Jesus’ baptism (vv. 13–17). The heavens opened, the Spirit descended, and the Father boomed His approval from heaven. This was a supernatural event!

Second, the fast preceded an intense battle with the devil. This was a series of skirmishes in a war of cosmic significance. In fact, we don’t see the enemy come at Jesus this directly or doggedly again in the gospel accounts.

Third, Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights. Have you ever noticed that the number forty is a pattern repeated often in Scripture?

Moses lived 40 years in Egypt (Acts 7:23) and 40 years in the desert before he was chosen to lead Israel out of slavery (Acts 7:30). Twice he met with the Lord on Mount Sinai for a period of 40 days and 40 nights (Ex. 24:18, 34:28). The second time he entered a dramatic fast, “he did not eat food or drink water” (v. 28) while he “wrote the Ten Commandments, the words of the covenant, on the tablets.”

The Israelite spies investigated the Promised Land for 40 days (Num. 13:25) and when the children of Israel responded with disbelief, they were sentenced to a period of wandering for—you guessed it—40 years. Jonah prophesied that Nineveh would be overthrown in 40 days (Jonah 3:4). Ezekiel laid on his right side for 40 days in lament for the sins of Judah (Ezek. 4:6). Elijah fasted for 40 days as he journeyed to Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:8).

In each case, the number 40 represents a period of great testing. More often than not, day 41 brought spiritual battles and Kingdom victories.

Soldiers train to fight. Triathletes train to compete. Jesus fasted to prepare to turn the world upside down.

Fitness experts have long celebrated the value of a 40-day regimen to realign our habits. If this is how realignment works in a person’s body, it’s not hard to believe that the same might be true for a person’s spirit. The Bible doesn’t specify that every fast must last for 40 days. Perhaps the significance of 40 is less about the number and more about the commitment it represents. A forty-day fast is more than a fleeting notion, it goes beyond the inconvenience of a hunger pang or two. A forty-day fast requires an all-in commitment of body and spirit.

As a follower of Jesus who wants to live like Jesus lived, take time today to consider: is there a pattern in His 40 day fast that bears repeating in your own life?