Going to Jesus

Daily Thoughts

 Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:

• Collection

  Thoughts for the Morning Thoughts for the Evening Random Thoughts

• Month

  January February March April May June July August September October November December

• Day

  03-01 “I Will Answer ALL Your Questions.” 03-02 The Will of the Flesh and the Will of Man 03-03 Self-will and Strong Will 03-04 The Danger of Liberty 03-05 A Chastened Man 03-06 Reconciled 03-07 “Reconciled” Response 03-08 “Reconciled” Response 03-09 One Way 03-10 “One Way” Response 03-11 A Checklist For Staying Free 03-12 Everything Jesus Is 03-13 Becoming An Unbeliever 03-14 We Cannot Even Love God 03-15 Seeing The Father 03-16 “You Are Still A Proud People” 03-17 'You Are Still A Proud People: Response 03-18 No More Church 03-19 “Church” 03-20 Because God Did Not Reveal The Truth 03-21 The Death Penalty 03-22 False Teachers 03-23 Leave The Saving To God 03-24 “That They Might Be Damned” 03-25 “A New And Living Way” 03-26 “Hard To Understand”? 03-27 Saving Love 03-28 With What God Is 03-29 Loving The Feelings 03-30 True Fasting 03-31 God Is Humbler Than Man

 

Thought for the Morning
3-30

True Fasting

Hi:

I have a question. How is the fasting that God accepts? Can you please explain for me? Thank you.

Manuel

==============

Hi Brother Manuel!

Thank you for writing.

God tells us in considerable detail the kind of fasting that he accepts in Isaiah 58. If you read that, you will notice that fasting is spiritual. Doing without physical food is not fasting; doing that is often just a case of one showing off his will power. Starving the body means no more to God than does water baptism, physical circumcision, holy days, special clothing for worship, or the physical of eating of bread and wine in Christian “communion suppers”. Whatever is in the flesh in not in the Spirit.

Jesus was condemned by many in Israel for being a glutton and a drunkard in Matthew 11:19. They condemned him for not fasting because they were judging by what they saw with their physical eyes (Jn. 8:15). The kind of fast Jesus observed was invisible (Isa. 58). His food, he told his disciples on one occasion, was “to do the will of Him who sent me” (Jn. 4:32). One time, his disciples tried and failed to cast a particularly powerful demon from a young boy, but afterward, Jesus did cast that spirit out of him. Later, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Why couldn’t we cast that spirit out?” Jesus explained to them that only by “prayer and fasting” could one cast out the kind of demon that possessed that little boy (Mt. 17:14-21).

So, Jesus fasted in the sight of God, in spite of his eating and drinking natural food. But because his kind of fast was in spirit and truth instead of the flesh, he was condemned by those who judged and lived in the flesh. They made a big show of their ability to fast from physical food, but they were eaten up with secret sin.

Everything in this New Covenant is in Spirit, Manuel, whether it is fasting, baptism, circumcision (Rom. 2:28-29), the Sabbath (Matt. 11:28), “communion”, our clothes for worship (e. g. Isa. 61:3), or anything else. If it is in the flesh, it “profits nothing” (Jn. 6:63); if it is in the Spirit, it is eternal life.

Thanks for the question. Stay in touch.

Pastor John