The notion of fasting to enter a heightened place in God, unfortunately is not common knowledge to many Christians. Those that have experienced the glory of God’s presence through fasting are familiar with the benefits of this personal sacrifice. However, the first few days or so of fasting is like base camp. It is time best used to prepare for the ascent to heavenly places in God.

This teaching compares the rigors of preparing to climb Mount Everest to the preparation required to ascend into the presence (high places) of God.

Scoping Mount Everest

The summit of Mount Everest is said to be the highest peak in the world at 5.5 miles above sea level. Annually, many people attempt to climb it for bragging rights. The entire process from arrival in China until the flight home is about three months. This speaks to the preparation required to climb the mountain with the expectation of a safe descent. There is a certain window of time that hikers can ascend otherwise the weather poses insurmountable dangers.

The Guide

Many hikers arrive in their departure city where they meet their Sherpa. The Sherpa is their native guide who has gone up the mountain dozens upon dozens of times. They know the way up, the dangers of the terrain and the weather. They are the best chance anyone has for ascending and descending safely.

The hikers stay in the host city for about two or three weeks to get acclimated to the altitude. It is there their Sherpa schools them on what to pack and what to do on the mountain. Once their bodies have adjusted to the thin air, they are ready to hike to base camp.

Base Camp

While the summit of Mount Everest is 5.5 miles (29,029 ft) above sea level, base camp is usually setup around 3.4 miles (17, 700 ft). This only two short miles from the peak. Two short, treacherous miles. The journey from the host city to Base Camp is probably not overly challenging for an experienced hiker. Once at base camp, hikers settle down to enjoy creature comforts not too much different than they’re familiar with during a typical hike. However, here is where final instructions and preparations are made before ascent.

Base Camp at Mt. Sinai

A Mount Everest Experience for Israel

The people of Israel depended on Moses to lead them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land much like the Sherpa was expected to lead their hikers. No doubt there was great excitement after Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt. They saw the Red Sea part, drank water out of a rock, God provided manna on the ground for bread and quails fell from the sky for meat. Life at Mt. Sinai base camp was good, right?

…until Moses went up the mountain to meet with God.

Before he went up, God instructed Moses to tell all the people to wash themselves. The men were not to have relations with their wives during this time. It was a time of consecration because God would show Himself to them.

After a lengthy wait, the man everyone looked to did not seem as if he was coming back. In their anxiousness, they forgot about God who drowned their enemy in the Red Sea; they forgot about God who provided water out of a rock; they forgot about God who rained manna on the ground and quails out of the sky. They forgot about sovereign God.

However, they were smart enough to know they couldn’t continue on their own but needed a higher power. So, they reverted back to the Egyptian mindset and decided to make a god of their own.

Their ignorance was showing.

It stands to reason; a golden calf didn’t bring them out of Egypt and a golden calf wasn’t about to lead them into the Promised Land.

Base Camp Uprooted

Now let’s fast forward to today. When we first got saved (realize I am speaking from my own experience) we experienced the joy of being redeemed and fellowship with one another. The excitement of everyone coming together to worship in anticipation of God moving supernaturally in the service naturally and spiritually facilitated God moving in that manner. Church was the mainstay; it was the highlight. Everything revolved around what we were doing at church. Church trumped everything. We were afraid to miss because we didn’t want to miss something that would happen only to hear about it later and be upset with ourselves because we weren’t there to witness it ourselves.

As They Were so are We

Now years later here we are comparable to the children of Israel at this stage of our Christian lives. The hoopla has died down. The people we used to hang with are now old folks with more aches than praises.

And what about the many prayers we’ve prayed that were never answered at least not to our expectations in content or timeliness?

We put all our trust in God and in actuality it seems He did not come through exactly as the preacher led us to believe. Was it smoke and mirrors?

The church doesn’t have the same impact on our lives. Overall, its focus is on achieving lofty things rather than experiencing good old deliverance from weights and sin. Believers choose other options. We choose to read self-help books perhaps inspired by the Bible but rarely go to the source of the inspiration. If there is the slightest event that interferes with church attendance, we often elect to forgo church. Why is that?

Did we, like the children of Israel become attached to a personality rather than attaching ourselves to sovereign God?

Perhaps we’ve grown as far as the preacher can take us. Moses had only so much of himself to give. He went up to meet with God to get the ‘more’ that was beyond his ability. The point here is, if we solely depend on the personality behind the pulpit or even on our own strength, we will eventually come up short. Keeping the fire of the Spirit burning requires stoking the fire. Consecration through fasting and prayer is a sure way to stoke that fire.

New Wine in Old Wineskins

Unfortunately, some of us have become like the idiom found in Matthew 9:17 when Jesus answers the question of why his disciples did not fast,

¹⁷ “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved.”

New wine expands for the first two to three weeks after being made. If placed in an old wineskin (used in ancient times) the wine will expand but the wineskin being old has lost its flexibility and will crack or burst. Then both the new wine and the old wineskin will be lost.

The new wine was the Holy Spirit who would be poured out at Pentecost. The Pharisees and religious groups of that time were the old wineskins. Old wineskins are no longer supple but are stiff. The mindset of religious factions could not open up to the possibility that Jesus was Christ let alone process the idea that
God would come to live in the believer. They were steeped in tradition and were more concerned about maintaining their position than receiving the things of God.

The new wine or Holy Spirt once received in the believer is intended to expand the believer’s spiritual intelligence. If we are old wineskins our growth will be stunted. Fasting is a way of keeping your wineskin supple and responsive to the new wine, the fire of the Holy Spirit God wants to stoke in us. After salvation, transformation is key.

Transforming the Mind

Romans 12:1-2 NLT

¹And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.

² Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Renewing of the mind is a process you work at continually.

As a believer, when does your new mind in Christ lose its edge?

Gradually. If we do not nurture our growth in the Spirit, we began to build gods, even unintentionally, from the shiny things that catch our attention just like the children of Israel. Unintentional [wink, wink] speaks to Aaron’s explanation to Moses when he is asked about the golden calf. Aaron responds in Exodus 32:24,

“So I told them, ‘Whoever has gold jewelry, take it off.’ When they brought it to me, I simply threw it into the fire—and out came this calf!” –

Sometimes our reasons for choosing other things rather than God is equally laughable.

 

Golden Calves

Israel made a golden calf because they were weak. They were serving the man Moses and not the sovereign God. What or who are the golden calves in your life?

One might ask, “But didn’t the children of Israel have a legitimate complaint about Moses being gone so long?”

Yes, Moses had left and they waited and waited and waited. It didn’t seem like he was coming back.

Do you feel sometimes that God didn’t come through for you as you thought?

You waited, you prayed and waited some more and prayed some more and then waited. At that point, you looked to the things and people around you. Things that were tangible; activities or people that you could take some solace in. You gave them your all making them your golden calves.

Sometimes that golden calf is birthed in the church. In 2 Kings 18:4 King Hezekiah had to destroy the brazen serpent Moses had made (Numbers 21:6-9) because the people begin to worship it. The brazen serpent was to be kept as a memorial. They made it a god by worshipping it. Sometimes we transfer the credit that belongs to God to the object or person He uses! This includes to how some view the crucifix and Mary, Jesus’ mother, both as mediums of prayer.

Fasting in Base Camp

In fasting Base Camp is also a place of cleansing. Cleansing of unnecessary weights and sin.

Hebrews 12:1

¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

To strip ourselves of unnecessary weight and sin, we need to employ the SIP process.

Search, Identify, Purge

Search

When we’re first saved, we start off well. Over time we pick up a little bit of error here and a little bit of error there and before you know it there is sin in our lives. It is necessary at this juncture to search our hearts and minds for any weights or sin (golden calves) we have picked up. Unnecessary weight can slow you down or even bring the journey to a halt. Search your heart just like the scripture requires us to examine ourselves before we take holy communion (1 Corinthians 11:27-29).

Identify

Most times if not all the time sin is easily identifiable. The adversary is skilled and disguises sin as culture, political correctness, or as part of changing times. Additionally, sin is not only what you do, it is also what you don’t do but are supposed to do. If you know to do right and don’t do it, it is sin.

Then there are weights that appear harmless especially when looking at them singularly. Consider the feather. One feather on your back (something that doesn’t belong there) feels like nothing. But a thousand pounds of feathers (repeating what you should not be doing because you haven’t gotten caught yet) on your back is crushing. That is when weight becomes your destruction.

What/Who are your golden calves?

• Unforgiveness?
• Bitterness?
• Offenses?
• Self-righteousness?
• An Object?
• An Activity?
• A Person?
• Unrighteous Attitude?
• Pride?

It takes honesty and humility to identify those things in our lives and address them. Bottomline, you want to identify your golden calves.

Purge

Before any Levite priest could enter the Old Testament Tabernacle every priest would have to pass a brass laver where they would wash themselves hence becoming ceremonially clean. It is only after this cleansing could they enter the Tabernacle.

The last step and perhaps the hardest step is to repent. Acknowledge weights as sin and then purge them. Turn away from it and stop doing it. That might be easier said than done in some instances but trust the Holy Spirit to guide you as to how to get that done.

1 Peter 1:15-16 NLT

¹⁵ But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy.

¹⁶ For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”

So, it is important to SIP (search, identify, purge) to ensure you are not carrying any unnecessary weight as you start your journey into the presence of God.

The Climb

Hikers double check that they have all the necessary equipment and are not carrying any extra baggage. If they are not prepared to climb the mountain, the mountain will climb them.

For as they ascend it gets colder; they make sure they have sufficient covering to protect them from the cold. It gets steeper; they make sure what they’ve packed is evenly balanced. The terrain is more treacherous the higher they get; they make sure they have boots that grip.

When you fast, you SIP to cover yourself; there aren’t any accommodations for weights or sin once you begin your ascent. In fact, the sun shining on the white mountain snow reflects more light the higher you go because there is more snow exposed than rock. The closer you draw to God the more undone you feel, the more exposed you feel in the light of His holiness. As you draw closer to God during this fast, you will feel naked and exposed in the light of His glory. There’s nothing you can hide from Him.

During fasting as you climb, it gets steeper (harder) so you need to balance yourself with prayer and studying the Word of God. The higher you go, the more sheer the cliffs, the narrower the passageways which will not accommodate your “extra”.

The devil will try to get you to call it off because it’s just too hard. He’ll try to paint you in a corner by rehearsing your sins and mistakes to you. That’s when you defeat the devil with the Word of God. The devil will come but you don’t have to pull up a chair for him!

The Presence of God

You don’t have to have a near death experience to be ushered into the rich, full presence of God.

You may say ‘Well I just experienced His presence this last Sunday or two weeks ago or I regularly experience of the presence of God.’ And if so, “Fantastic!”

Do you think you’ve seen or experienced it all?

Do you think you’ve exhausted God in what He can allow you to experience?

Have you been in the presence of God where you lose your language and your senses are so heightened that you don’t want to down to “earth”?

Consciously, you know you haven’t left the earth, but the world certainly pales in comparison to being in the presence of God. Yes, it is a wonderful feeling to be drenched in His presence for as much as a human can tolerate. He surrounds you and you just don’t want to leave. You talk and commune and are so full of his abundant love that when you do come down you are still basking in the warmth. It reminds of me of the hymn by C. Austin Miles.

In the Garden

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses

Refrain: And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am his own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known

He speaks and the sound of His voice
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing

I’d stay in the garden with Him
Tho’ the night around me be falling;
But He bids me go; thro’ the voice of woe,
His voice to me is calling.

Yes, that’s where we want to go.

Promises, Promises

Why do we want to make this journey?

• For greater manifestations of God in our lives
• For lost souls, both family and friends
• For healing emotionally and physically

We don’t fast for what we can do for Him, we fast for what He will do through us. When we are able to move under the power of the Holy Spirit, then He is working through us doing those things that are beyond us.

At this time of the year a lot of people are making promises to themselves and others and even to God. God doesn’t want us to make promises to Him but he simply wants us to believe the promises he’s made to us.

Here’s two things I’ll promise you. If you put little in, you’ll get little out. If you put in everything you will get an overflow.