(upbeat music) Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast. John Piper returns home tomorrow from a very busy holiday travel schedule. He preached three times at the Campus Outreach New Year's Conference in Milwaukee and then turned around and preached at the Passion Conference in Atlanta. Busy times, but good times and much grace.

And in the meantime, we've been served well by guest Dr. Don Whitney, who joins us one last time. Thank you, Don. Don serves as professor of biblical spirituality and associate dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. He is known for his modern day classic book, "Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life" and he is also the author of the new book from Crossway titled "Praying the Bible".

And yesterday we talked about the two most important spiritual disciplines, which was so helpful. And today I wanna ask you about the hardest spiritual discipline. I know this is a question you get all the time. So in your experience, what personal spiritual discipline is the most difficult to pull off successfully?

- My personal observation and conversations with many people over this subject is that the most difficult discipline to practice consistently is fasting. And fasting is one of those disciplines that everybody knows about. You know, it's mentioned in the Bible actually more often than something as important as baptism. About 77 times by my count, fasting is mentioned to about 75 times that baptism is mentioned in the Bible.

And so people know it's there, but they don't practice it. I mean, for example, we go to Matthew chapter four, Luke chapter four, okay, Jesus fast 40 days, then he's tempted by the devil. Let's talk about how he quoted scripture to the devil. So we know it's there, we just sort of pass over this 40 days of fasting kind of idea.

And people will not practice what they're not taught to practice. I mean, by and large, people will not practice what they've not been taught to practice. If they've not been taught fasting, they're not likely to practice fasting. And if someone isn't practicing fasting, they're not likely to be an advocate of fasting.

It's very hard to get up and preach a sermon on fasting or to teach a lesson on fasting when you don't fast. If you're not practicing it, it's hard to be a very persuasive advocate of it. So I think that's one of the main reasons people don't fast, they just never heard anything about it.

But even for people who know the biblical teaching on fasting well, it's still hard to practice because of all the other disciplines, you feel in your body. When you practice this discipline, you feel the absence of food and it's uncomfortable. And we don't like to feel uncomfortable. And John Piper has a great teaching on this in his book, "A Hunger for God." I love that title, I think more than all of his titles, because he says, "Fasting is really "when your hunger for God exceeds your hunger "for the food God made you to live on." That is, there never a time when your hunger for God to answer a prayer, to move in your life, to move in a situation exceeds your hunger for the food God made you to live on.

So fasting, seen from that perspective, is refreshing. And the most important thing, I think, about the practice of fasting that would help people, besides the recognition that Jesus does expect his people to fast, we see that in the gospels. But the most important thing is to fast for a biblical purpose.

In one of my books, I summarize 10 biblical purposes found in scripture for fasting. For example, for answered prayer is a common one there. I think when most people fast, they just see it as something to endure. Okay, the Bible says to fast, I'm not gonna eat for 24 hours.

And the whole time, their stomach growls, their headaches, and they think, man, I'm hungry. Their next thought is, oh, that's right, I'm hungry because I'm fasting. And their next thought is, how much time till this is over? And it's just something to be endured. It's a miserable, self-centered experience.

Instead, it should look something like this. When your stomach growls, when your headaches, you say, man, I'm hungry. Your next thought's gonna be, oh, that's right, I'm hungry because I'm fasting today. Your next thought should be, and I'm fasting for this purpose. So let's say your purpose is to pray for your child's salvation.

Every time during the day that you get hungry, that should be a prompt to pray for your child's salvation. The result is you're praying for your child's salvation all day long. That's what you wanted to do. Therefore, your hunger serves you. Your hunger serves your greater purpose. Your greater purpose is not to endure hunger.

Your greater purpose is to see your child saved. So that failure to see fasting is just something to be endured. The failure to fast with a particular purpose in mind all the way through it, I think is the biggest stumbling block for fasting to those people who know the biblical teaching about fasting.

If they don't know the biblical teaching, well, you can't expect people to do what they've never been taught to do. But once they understand that, I believe the biggest problem is a failure to see a biblical purpose when they start. - Yes, that is seasoned counsel and very practical and concrete.

Thank you, Dr. Whitney, and thank you for joining us for the last week as a guest on the Ask Pastor John podcast. - Tony, it's been a great honor to be on the podcast. - And speaking of fasting, I have to mention John Piper's excellent book on the subject.

It's titled "A Hunger for God, "Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer." And you can download the entire book free of charge at desiringgod.org/books. "A Hunger for God" is the title again. We return tomorrow with John Piper himself in the flesh, and we will field a question from a listener who is enduring prolonged unemployment, and we'll address especially unemployment for those who are enduring what has been coined a quarter-life crisis.

There's so many 20-somethings that cannot get their foot into a good career, and it leads to tensions and questions. Piper returns tomorrow to address this situation. And for anything and everything you need to know or ask or get regarding this podcast, go to our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

I'll see you tomorrow. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)