Category: 2023 – Foster’s Celebration of Discipline

Inward Discipline #3: Fasting

In his book Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster lists Fasting as the third inward discipline.  Interestingly, he points out that fasting developed a bad reputation as a result of the excessive ascetic practices of the Middle Ages.

Therefore, Foster could not find a single book published on the subject of Christian fasting from 1861 to 1954—a period of nearly one hundred years!

Fast forward to today, when the constant propaganda fed to us convinces us that if we do not have three large meals each day—with several snacks in between—we are on the verge of starvation. This, coupled with the popular belief that it is a positive virtue to satisfy every human appetite, has made fasting seem obsolete.

But should it be?

Scripture has so much to say about fasting that we would do well to look once again at this ancient Discipline.

Click here to learn more from Richard Foster on Fasting

Inward Discipline #2: Prayer

Richard Foster says that prayer catapults us onto the frontier of the spiritual life. Of all the Spiritual Disciplines, prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father.

Real prayer is life creating and life changing. “Prayer—secret, fervent, believing prayer—lies at the root of all personal godliness,” writes William Carey.

To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us.

In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God’s thoughts after Him: to desire the things He desires, to love the things He loves, to will the things He wills. Progressively, we are taught to see things from His point of view.

Click here to learn more from Foster and others on Prayer