I Was Asked About Fasting

Meditations based on readings from

The Story of My Life As Told by Jesus Christ

August 27, 2019

I Was Asked About Fasting

Page 79-80

Matthew 9:14-17; Mark 2:18-22; Luke 5:33-39

The Apostle Paul said “by the grace of God I am what I am” and in Christ I live and move and have my being. (1 Corinthians 15:10, Acts 17:28 NRSV) Seeking the life in Christ as your way of life is about continually reaffirming each day that Jesus Christ is the source of your life. That may sound simple and straightforward, but the road to the Christ-life is filled with appealing alternatives. Typically, in our society, faith in God is based on a compilation of cultural values, bits and pieces from many different denominational doctrines and odds and ends from other religions.

In the reading for today, Jesus used the spiritual discipline of fasting to demonstrate “that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). In first century Judaism, fasting was about remembering their past sins and lamenting their present reality of waiting for God to come and redeem them. Jesus’ message to the Pharisees was that the waiting was over; God had come and was redeeming them. Thus it was time for celebration, not fasting.

Jesus also made clear that God was doing something new, and trying to blend God’s redemptive work through the Messiah with first century tradition would not work. The Messiah was not just a little salt and pepper for their diet. The Messiah was an altogether new meal, a feast.

My Takeaway: There is a movement today in many places throughout the world to try and blend Christianity with the life of twenty-first century culture.  Over and against this movement, I hear Jesus is calling me to reaffirm each day that new life in Christ is my only way of life.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Copyright © 2019 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

• Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

• The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.