Ideas for Small Groups
Giving is Fun Weeks of Self-Denial 2014 Is fasting the same as self-denial?
For some who fast regularly in the seven weeks before Easter, this time is often the start of a new habit or way of life. At this point I would like to distinguish between the various methods of fasting, which also include The Salvation Army’s weeks of selfdenial, and a fundamental attitude of selfdenial.
I do not own the interpretational sovereignty for these two terms. Language always has something to do with feeling. So I will dispense with detailed definitions. In the Old Testament, we often read that the people fasted. Sometimes people fasted in the context of collective penance. But always with the intention of showing God how serious they were in their concerns.
Jesus, who himself practised periods of fasting, at the same time demonstrates and calls for a perpetual self-denial. In it lies the secret of a new life.
Fasting is a purposeful process, but limited in duration. It was said of John’s disciples that they ‘often fasted’ (Luke 5:33). Normally, fasting entails temporarily giving up something essential, like food. So fasting is like a ‘little death’, which implies: I am standing up for this cause with my whole life. This unconditional purpose also explains why fasting is connected with prayer. •
General Bramwell Booth wrote similarly in a handout for Salvationists: It is a striking thought that self-denial is, perhaps, the only service that a man can render to God without the aid or co-operation of something or someone outside himself – unless it be to pray. If, for example, he speaks or sings for God, whether in public or in private, he must have hearers; if he distributes gifts, there must be receivers of his charity; if he leads souls to Christ, these souls must be willing to come; if he suffers persecution, there must be persecutors. And though it is true that God can, and often does, wonderfully teach and inspire His people without the direct aid of any human agent, it is equally true that He generally does so by the employment of His word, which He has revealed to men, or by the recalling of some message which has already been received into the mind and heart. After full allowance has been made for the power and influence of intervening agencies, it is in Him we really live, and move, and have our being. But I return to my first word. There is one kind of service open to all, irrespective of circumstances and gifts, which can be rendered to God without the intervention of anyone. And this we may truly call selfdenial. Much that quite properly comes under that description need never – probably will never – be known to anyone but God. It may be a holy sacrament indeed, kept between the soul and its Lord alone.
Share what experiences you have had with fasting.
Jesus says that ‘fasting and prayer’ will help us to serve with authority and experience miracles (Mark 9:29). At the same time he warns about making a religious show. ‘Your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you’ (Matthew 6:1-4). According to that, our weeks of self-denial would be more of a time of fasting, a time of spiritual exercise with positive effects on our whole lives. The concept of The Salvation Army, which hands over the money saved for mission with all its heart, makes us expect more blessings. ‘For God loves a cheerful giver’ (2 Corinthians 9:7). •
How could this cheerfulness be expressed?
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Take turns telling each other how God has blessed you, after you voluntarily gave up something for a while?
1 Frank Honsberg // Evangelist & Territorialer Sekretär für Entwicklung geistlichen Lebens // Impulse 2014 SVW 04 ENG Die Heilsarmee THQ // Salierring 23-27 // 50677 Köln // frank.honsberg@heilsarmee.de // 0221-20819-0