What is the purpose of fasting? Why did Jesus fast for 40 days? Was it to set an example for us?
First off let me just say, any diet you are on could be cut out and all you would need to do is fast for one day a week or one day a month. This is the quickest and easiest way to defeat food's hold on you. It is the easiest way to tell your stomach, "I will NOT let you control me." So try fasting for your next diet plan. I'm serious.
Here are some quotes from what I believe to be one of the BEST books ever written. The Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. Read it! lol :)
On Fasting
"In a culture where the landscape is dotted with shrines to the Golden Arches and an assortment of Pizza Temples, fasting seems out of place, out of step with the times. (lol so true!) In fact, fasting has been in general disrepute both in and outside the Church for many years."
This is very sad, considering Jesus fasted. He set the most incredible example for us in fasting more then anything else! He fasted for 40 days! FORTY DAYS! Can you imagine? And isn't it interesting that that is the first thing he did. Why was it the first?
The first was always considered VERY important in the Bible. In tithing we are to give God our "first fruits." As in before we spend money on ANYTHING else we are to give God the first 10%.
Jesus fasted before he did ANYTHING else.
And why did he?
The question we shold always ask ourselves as Christians is what would Jesus do? What would Jesus do if he were in my place right now, wherever I am?
Foster says, "I could not find a single book published on the subject of Christian fasting from 1861 to 1954, a period of nearly one hundred years." Wow! Crazy.
"The constant propaganda fed us today 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."
Very, very true.
May God open our eyes more and more to this truth. And may we listen to Him, and not our stomachs, lol :)
May God bless you! :)
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