A Physical for the Christian Soul

I don’t know if this is true for you, but if my desire is deep enough I can rationalize away anything, even though I know better.  My desire enables me to shoot myself in the foot.

For example, my metabolism is beginning to slow, but my eating habits haven’t. I still eat what I want when I want because I have always been able to do it.

Well, I haven’t put the breaks on my eating habit and have gained about 10 pounds. Even though I do not need eat the same amount of food I as I used to, I still do. I just polished of a small carton of ice cream. I wasn’t really hungry, it just sounded good so my desire rationalized eating the whole thing.

If I don’t get a handle on this struggle soon, I will have entered into the world of gluttony and loss of self-control.

I could wrestle with this issue silently in mind and tell myself that “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can” all I want, but when the temptation comes, can I? Will I?

This article is a continuation of the prior one dealing with fasting. Donald Whitney outlines 10 reasons to fast in his book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. We pick up with reasons six through ten in this article.

6. To Express Concern for the Work of God

Though many of us in North America may not have experienced this, imagine walking through a village in Rwanda or the Sudan after it was pillaged and savaged by ruthless murders and rapists. There are dead people lying along the roadside butchered by machetes with their limbs severed. The homes that they live in burned and destroyed. Everywhere you turn the stench of death waffles through the air.

You think, how can man do this? Where is God? Scenes like this would compel us to pray, but prayer might not be enough to satisfy our longing for healing. So we fast, weep and pray asking God to descend to this place of hell on earth and begin to heal it.

Nehemiah found himself in a similar situation. Jerusalem had been savaged by the Babylonians as the Jewish nation was exiled into captivity. Years later he traveled to Jerusalem and saw the devastation. Here’s how the Bible describes the scene in Nehemiah 1:3-4.

The tragedies you experience are probably not a graphic as the example, but may be equally devastating. Consider fasting as you ask for God’s healing.

Did you know fasting is mentioned in the Bible more than baptism? Surprising? It was to me. Fasting may be the most neglected of the spiritual disciplines. Most Christians routinely pray, serve, worship, study, and try to obey. Some memorize Scripture, evangelize, journal, and give.

But when it comes to fasting, many scratch their heads and wonder what it means and what good it will do. Maybe you are one of them.

In the broadest sense, fasting is abstaining from something (usually food) for a spiritual purpose. When we abstain, we are denying ourselves the very thing that sustains us or gives us pleasure. Our bodies and minds fight against it, yearning for the very thing that we are denying.

One of the pitfalls of having professional pastors (people who get paid to do ministry) is the false assumption that they are the ones who do "ministry" because of their gifting and calling.

Sure, pastors do ministry, but effective pastors teach others to do ministry including teaching the Bible and Jesus to others.

To be clear, you do not need to be gifted in teaching to teach the Bible to others. Let me explain.