{"id":314,"date":"2009-03-14T09:06:58","date_gmt":"2009-03-14T13:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/Correspondence\/?p=314"},"modified":"2009-03-14T09:06:58","modified_gmt":"2009-03-14T13:06:58","slug":"fasting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/314\/fasting\/","title":{"rendered":"Fasting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Pastor John,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have been talking to friends about fasting, could you explain fasting to me there seems to be many different ways to do this, and i want only what god would except.<\/span><\/p>\n

thank you,<\/span><\/p>\n

R\u00a0S<\/span><\/p>\n

============<\/span><\/p>\n

Brother Rob: <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The OT form of fasting was in the flesh; the NT form is to walk in the Spirit.\u00a0 Fasting\u00a0is no longer a matter of\u00a0being strong-willed enough to do without food for a few days, as the scribes and Pharisees did it.\u00a0 There is a great danger of pride in self-willed abuse of the body.\u00a0 Paul referred to this, and called it “will worship”.\u00a0\u00a0I do not that believe Jesus (or Moses, or Elijah) just made up his mind to go into the wilderness and then do without\u00a0food and water for 40 days.\u00a0 The Bible says he was “driven” into the wilderness by the Spirit (Mk. 1:12).\u00a0 There, he became\u00a0so caught up with seeking God that he forgot about the issue of food . . . as well his mother’s birthday, the problem the authorities were having with\u00a0horse and mule manure on the streets of Jerusalem, and every\u00a0other earthly matter.\u00a0 Uncle Joe told me that true fasting is when you get so hungry (for God) that you forget about eating.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Think about it.\u00a0 Jesus told his disciples that they were unable to cast out certain\u00a0demons because those demons came out “only by prayer and fasting”.\u00a0 But one of the greatest criticisms Jesus ever received was that he ate and drank like a normal person, unlike John the baptizer who fasted (in the OT way)\u00a0often.\u00a0 So, obviously, Jesus was fasting in a way that his enemies could not recognize as fasting. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

God’s true fast is described in detail in Isaiah 58.\u00a0 It is a way of living, not a man-willed way of not eating food.\u00a0 If you want your prayers to mean something to God, just live as He says in that chapter to live, and trust him.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Pastor John,\u00a0 I have been talking to friends about fasting, could you explain fasting to me there seems to be many different ways to do this, and i want only what god would except. thank you, R\u00a0S ============ Brother Rob: The OT form of fasting was in the flesh; the NT form is to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}