There is a way to get that fabulous body we see advertised, you know the one, the body that is air brushed and edited to show the perfect body we all desire for ourselves…or so we have been told. With Keto and other fad diets we are now told we need to add what is called “intermittent fasting”.
Diet gurus are now telling us, “Intermittent fasting is an effective tool to lose weight. It can help you eat fewer calories and optimize numerous hormones related to fat loss.” “It’s not WHAT you eat, it’s WHEN you eat it.”
Well, duh. Yes, that is my professional opinion as an eater all my life. When I eat and sit on the couch and binge watch TV, I gain weight. When I do not eat and sit on the couch I might lose weight but will gain it all back and more when I go back to eating. That’s the real science of fasting.Why do we fast, really? As believers, jaded by worldview thinking, we are embracing fasting as religious way to lose those unwanted pounds that we have added through undisciplined lives. We think that by fasting God will answer our prayer to take away the multitude of sin lbs that we acquired over the years to our bodies.
Mm. That being said, let’s find out what Jesus says about fasting. It’s a new way to think and behave…but then, with Jesus it will always be different than what the world thinks. True fasting is a hunger for God.
Matthew 9
Jesus Questioned About Fasting14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
15 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
16 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. 17 Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
WHAT DOES THIS REALLY MEAN?
Jesus presents four pictures of His ministry and mission. Ministry is to those who believe. Mission is seeking and saving the lost, (those who do not yet believe). 1. Jesus, as the Physician, came to bring spiritual health to sick sinners.
2. As the Bridegroom, He came to give spiritual
joy. The Christian life is a feast, not a funeral.
3. The illustration of the cloth reminds us that He came to bring spiritual wholeness; He did not come to “patch us up”
and then let us fall apart.
4. The image of the wineskins teaches that He gives spiritual fullness. Jewish religion was a worn-out wineskin that would burst if filled with the new wine of the gospel. Jesus did not come to renovate Moses or even mix law and grace. He came with new life!
HOLY PAUSE
Fasting is not about food intake as much as it is about thoughts and subsequent behaviors. Are we merely adding Jesus and His saving grace to our already overwhelming, crowded, busy worldly thinking lives? OR are we “fasting” all that the world has to offer and leaning the full weight of our existence on God alone?
New life means no longer thinking like the world. Everything old is gone. Everything is new! Our new life in Christ means fasting from world thinking. We feast on thinking like Jesus and then behaving like Jesus taught us to live. (Review the “sermon on the mount” as a beginning.)Be spiritually fit first. Do what God wants for you by asking God. He will tell you, guide you and provide this new way of thinking.
And guess what, when we pass from this life to the next we are promised that new, perfect body! Paul explains God’s “body work” for us;
“For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.
We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing.
For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies. While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life.
God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.” 2 Corinthains 5:1-5
NEW HOUSES, NEW BODIES-Built by God, Himself
God, our Body Builder
Jesus, our Savior and Lord
Holy Spirit, our Body Coach
We have all the help we need. So fast if and when you must but only if it brings glory to God and is good for your soul work.Dear Heavenly Father,
I love where Your Word takes me each morning. I love how you love us. I love how you save us from ourselves. I love how you lighten the load we place on ourselves. I love how you coach us in this life, encouraging us to exercise our faith in preparation for eternal life with you…in a new body! Thank you, Lord for changing our obsession with earth body work for spiritual health! Continue to change and transform me.
In Jesus Name, Amen
In our passage today Jesus, who is part God come down to earth, is now moving about the neighborhoods of ordinary people. These Jews of tradition and legacy are people just trying to make a living while under the oppression of the Roman government. If that oppression wasn’t enough, there is more burden placed on them from the Jewish religious elite.
Jesus is also awakening the religious elite who have fought all their lives to rise to power in the ranks, not in serving and loving God’s people. They know only enough about God to use His Law to their advantage. They know The Law well enough to find loopholes while twisting it to their need. 
Instead these men became focused on themselves, their own power, greed and dishonesty. They no longer knew God. God had no place in their hearts, no thoughts in their minds which produced only darkness in their souls.
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
A tax collector was deemed a cheater because he could decide what to charge the people on top of what was required for the Roman government. That was his “fee” for collecting. That’s how he made his living.
HOLY PAUSE
Jesus climbed into a boat and went back across the lake to his own town. 2 Some people brought to him a paralyzed man on a mat. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Be encouraged, my child! Your sins are forgiven.”
This miraculous event of healing was motivated by God’s Son, Jesus, to show the unbelieving, hypocritical religious leaders the glory and power of God. In fact, all the miracles Jesus performed were for the good of people in dire circumstances but above all, to show people, ordinary people, who God is and what He can do. All was done, not to bring glory to Jesus, but to God His Father in heaven who sent Him.
Where are we in all this? Where is our world now as a whole?
Jesus gave the commission, with authority from God, to us to do what He did on earth…
Do these thoughts of God excite us or cause fear and trembling? It depends on our relationship to God. Do we know Him? 
We are very familiar with the story of Jesus calming the storm with mere words after being summoned from sleep. We have heard many sermons on this very passage to teach us how important our faith in Jesus must be as we grow and mature in our walk with Him. Fear is a factor, too and we learn that faith and love trump fear and put anxieties to rest.
But today, instead of writing about what I’ve heard about the storms of life that grow my faith, I decided to keep reading about what happened next, after Jesus and the disciples landed on the other side of the lake. 
However, when face to face with Jesus, evil concedes to Jesus and screams, “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?” They even know that a battle will occur when Jesus goes to battle for us and will claim victory over sin and death forever. Do they know they will lose?
Do we believe what we believe is really real?
23 Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. 24 Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. 25 The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”
32 He said to them, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. 33 Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. 34 Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.
Here lies the difference between being bound by our sin nature which leads to destruction and ultimately death versus living freely with Jesus, learning to love, walk humbly, be at peace no matter what, while receiving grace upon undeserved grace and mercy which leads to life and more life forever!
TWO CHOICES
“You can’t get something for nothing” skeptic people say. “Nothing is entirely free in this world, so watch out”, advised my parents. Yes, there is always a cost of some sort to obtain what others say is free.
Salvation from our sin was freely given, debt paid in full by Jesus’ death and resurrection. Wisdom is freely given by God when we ask for it. Godly character is freely developed, day by day, by the Holy Spirit when we allow it. God freely provides for all our needs. Jesus freely protects us from the evil one who tries to stop His work from being accomplished in and through us. God goes before us, stands beside us, helping us through all the storms of life. Having the mind of Jesus keeps us in perfect peace through the difficult times on our journey. All free.
What Jesus is trying to get all believers then and now to understand is that the Truth we have received freely, we are to freely give to others, at all costs to our own agendas. At all costs, be like Jesus. Do what Jesus did as His Holy Spirit directs us. Help people find and follow Jesus, the One who was freely given by God for our sins.
“As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.” Matthew 10:7-8, NIV
THE COST
The Twelve original disciples heard, “Follow me” as Jesus began His ministry. They immediately, without thought to their careers as fishermen, tax collectors and other trades, followed Him. Now that Jesus is becoming popular, others who are tagging along with the crowd, want to be part of the miraculous action. But Jesus knows their hearts and brilliantly explains the cost.
HOLY PAUSE
7 Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Jesus, sent from God to earth, performed miracles so that humans could see and experience the glory of God. All that Jesus did on earth was so that the lost would believe and come back to God. Jesus is the link to God because He is God in human form, seeking to save the lost without God.
HOLY PAUSE
I have been privileged to hear and relate to many great speakers, preachers and teachers as well as leaders and agents of popular contemporary bands who exhort God’s Word. For thirteen years, working as an executive for a denomination, it was part of my job to obtain popular speakers for national events. So I met and contracted with many wonderful men and women of God. I must tell you that some i would hire again in an instant. Some I would not and did not.
Matthew 8
And Jesus “willingly” did just that.
Jesus, heart of passion, seeking to save the most, comes down the mountain and bends down to the outcasts and restores them to full health.
Randy and I escaped the confines of our home and property to take a drive through small towns last week. We avoided crowds and big highways. (The pandemic certainly changes the way we go about our lives these days, right?) As we drove slowly through small towns, that insist on a 25 per hour speed limit with multiple stops, we took time to marvel at each towns’ old buildings, especially the courthouses. Wow! When you look closely you notice the intricate planning and work that went into these beautiful buildings. Built during the late 1800’s, these structures were built to last and still catch the eye. They are still used as functioning places of government.
The planners and builders were wise and inventive, creative and innovative for their time. Today’s tools for construction were not available at that time so we imagine the brawn and muscle of many that it took to raise this structure! Yes, it was built to last, one brick and stone at time, on a strong foundation. 
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
Believe. Be amazed each day. Marvel at God’s love and goodness and watch how He never stops working! Be amazed in humble gratitude for Jesus’ saving grace. Listen to His Holy Spirit as He continues the construction work of our souls, getting us ready for life forever with God. 
When darkness seems to hide His face
Dear Lord,
Following Jesus as Lord is the other half of the whole in our growing relationship with Jesus. As LORD of our lives, we commit to becoming like Him, following the guidance of His Holy Spirit, we do what He teaches. We wake each day and greet our Lord with, “Here is my life, what will we do today, Lord?” We live for him, not for ourselves or anyone else, no matter what our vocation in life. Everything we think, say or do goes through the filter of His Holy Spirit living in us. We depend and rely on the wisdom of His Word and His Holy Spirit to be in all the details of our lives. All our decisions are made based on what He tells us in His Word and what we hear from our conversations in prayer to Him.
The Narrow and Wide Gates
Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
Jesus is talking to the religious leaders as well as current, curious followers who are hearing truth for the first time. 
TWO WAYS TO CHOOSE
Here, then, is the first test: Did your profession of faith in Christ cost you anything? 
These show that true faith in Christ changes the life and produces fruit for God’s glory. Everything in nature reproduces after its kind, and this is also true in the spiritual realm. Good fruit comes from a good tree, but bad fruit comes from a bad tree.
Revelation 3:20 is part of a message to a church. That is the danger for each one of us as Christians. We can allow our passion for Jesus to fade and to become indifferent to sin, or to others in need.
HOLY PAUSE
According to what Jesus is telling us in our next passage, it is we who should be doing the knocking on the door that leads to God’s throne. Jesus died and rose again so that we could walk right up to the door of God’s heart to ask, seek and knock for answers to all our questions for wisdom, abilities in coping with life’s journey along with spiritual gifts that will grow us and ultimately prepare us for our forever home in heaven.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
You and I are human and fallible; we make mistakes. Only God can judge perfectly. Therefore, we must pray and seek His wisdom and direction. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God” (James 1:5). Young King Solomon knew that he lacked the needed wisdom to judge Israel, so he prayed to God, and the Lord graciously answered (1 Kings 3:3.).
