This Sunday was the hungriest I have felt in a long time during a church service. You can probably guess what the sermon was on - FASTING - The abstaining from food for spiritual purposes. The harder I tried not to think about eating, the greater my desire for food became. Sounds familiar? Fasting is neither fun nor easy, but it is so worth it when we consider Jesus' awesome promise in Matthew 9:16+17: When questioned why his disciples didn't fast, Jesus explained that this was not the right time for them, yet. It would be like "new wine [being] put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved."
This implies that the disciples, before Christ's resurrection, were like old wineskins. They could not have handled the glory which God wanted to reveal to his children through fasting. They had to wait until they were made new creations in Christ in order to be ready for this 'new wine'. Unlike the disciples, we do not have to wait, because we were made new when we turned to Christ. Jesus' promise is for us! God wants to bless our socks off through fasting by revealing more and more of Himself to us. That is reason enough for me!
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