Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
John,
Would you please give me instructions on fasting? Thank you.
Gary
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Hi Gary:
Uncle Joe said that “true fasting is when you get so hungry [for God] that you don’t eat” (e. g. Jn. 4:32-34). When desire for God consumes a man, he may or may not eat, but doing without earthly food is not his object. Nor is it important.
True fasting has nothing to do with refusing to eat food. Jesus ate and drank regularly; he was even called a drunkard by the Pharisees because he did not set aside long periods of ostentatious abstinence as they did. We might say that “planned foodlessness is plain foolishness.”
Think about this. Jesus ate and drank natural food so regularly that he developed a reputation among his enemies for not starving his body, and yet, he once told his disciples that he was able to cast out a demon because he fasted and prayed (Mt. 17:18-21). His disciples were praying and were fasting in an Old Testament sense. But Jesus was keeping the true fast which, without the holy Ghost, they could not keep.
The fast that God recognizes as a fast is described in detail in Isaiah 58. Follow those instructions.
Pastor John