Fasting

I was driving along, listening to the local Christian radio station, when the show had a guest come on to discuss the power of fasting. 

"Power?", I thought.  Hmmm, may as well as pull over and listen!

Now the show was by Liberty University, don't care who founded it, don't care who runs it, I do care that if they are invading my airwaves they are being wholly Bible based.

Now we have many examples of fasting:

• It was widely practiced, at God's command, by the Jews and made law by the Hebrews.  (difference is one is religious, the other racial)  
• Fasting was done in remembrance of something important.  
• Fasting was to free up your day to concentrate on God during the Sabbath.  
• Fasting and prayer went hand in hand when petitioning God to answer prayer (remember NO is the most common answer in our egomaniacal culture!).
• Jesus told the Apostles that some situations can only be overcome through fasting and prayer

And I am not including the examples from the radio program above:

• God sells houses, if you fast.  
• God finds you money, if you fast.
• God will build your school, if you fast.
• God will fill your school with students, if you fast.
• God will bless your marriage, if you fast together on these examples!

Really?

Well, all of this radio show's remarks concerning Liberty University do fit with seeking God to answer prayer.  However, the way the testimonies ran, well yeah, we are talking Christian superstition here!

If you -
If only -
You have to -

Each of these precursors to a statement tell you that you are about to be hit by a Christian superstition and it is time to ignore the rest this person has to say.

God is incapable of starting up a university?
God is incapable of raising money?
God is incapable of raising up a building?
God is incapable of raising up a student body?

God is sovereign, He can and will do as He pleases:

• With or without you
• With or without you fasting
• With or without your superstitions

Now, I am not saying that fasting does not have its place ...

I have fasted for decades as a remembrance, a celebration if you will, of the first miracle I witnessed as a new Christian.
When I really need to know God's will.
When I am in need of protection and guidance
When I am asked to help another

Funny, my Bible does not point out to me that I need to fast to buy a house, or really do anything in normal life, it is the extraordinary we fast concerning.  That is not to say that these men whom started this university were not in need of fasting to know God's will, they may very well have needed to.  But, they carried the conversation beyond faith and into the last of superstition.

And more so, Jesus condemned the Pharisees and their "long faces" (they were fasting and wanted all to know it!) for being showmen and not humble before God.

So you decide, but if you are fasting to get God to do what you want him to do, well come to superstition and expect Satan to answer as soon as possible in order to drive you further away from faith.