Sugar Fast Friday # 3

Totally forgot to post about this yesterday.

First of all, I have been reading a bit more on the subject of fasting and denying yourself.  Those verses in the Gospels when Jesus addresses this, they kept popping up this past week.  Matthew 10:38, 16:24,25, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23, 14:26, 33, and John 12:25.  I realized that God has been trying to teach me something and it is tied into the repentance piece from last week.  

The idea of repentance - that turning from something, suggests a full 180, which means that you will be turning from something, in order to turn to something completely different.  God called the Israelites to return to Him.  When they turned away from Him, He called them to turn back - to repent and to return back to Him.  A command to lay that down and instead pick this up.  

The discipline of fasting is not only a discipline to humble me, allowing myself to see how weak and dependent I truly am, but it is also a laying something down (in most cases food - but there are all kinds of fasting you can undertake - complaining, media, eating out, sugar, alcohol, parties and social events, books, etc;).  I lay what I am fasting from down, and if the item(s) I am fasting from was/is sinful or I treated them in a sinful way (i.e. idolized them) then I need to confess it as such.  Then take up His Word, His Presence, and His forgiveness.  

I turn from the comfort and treat of going to get a Starbucks and instead turn to His Word and allow it work in my heart.  He is faithful and His Word is true.  It may not happen on your timetable but it will happen exactly how He promises it will.  His promises are true and you can indeed build your entire life upon them.  

If you are not used to the discipline of fasting and have not cultivated this in your heart, which I was not, did not...then start small.  Choose one day a week (which is what I did), pick one thing to fast from (most sugar but specifically Starbucks hot chocolates), and faithfully do that each week.  Pray and ask God to develop this discipline in your heart.  

This is a quote I absolutely love from Lysa TerKeurst's book (it used to be called Made to Crave, but has since been updated and rereleased under a new title) I'll Start Again on Monday.  I start the quote in the middle of a passage - so just to give a bit of background she is referencing the young man that Jesus charged to sell all he had and give to the poor and then come follow Him in Matthew chapter nineteen.:

"Jesus didn't mean this as a sweeping command for everyone who has a lot of money.  He meant for any of us who wallow in whatever abundance we have.  I imagine Jesus looked straight into this young man's soul and said, "I want you to give up the one thing that you crave more than me.  Then come, follow me," " from Lysa's introduction in I'll Start Again on Monday)

This is exactly what I think the spiritual discipline of fasting is supposed to do - we are supposed to lay down the thing that we crave more than Him.  And then to come and follow Jesus.

Day 3 (or I am beginning to think of these Fridays as setting the tone for my weeks...so week three) the focus is on the crumbling stronghold of sugar.  Shout His victory even before He sets you free.  And set your heart to a listening posture.  Wendy gives five takeaways from the story of Joshua and the walls of Jericho at the end of chapter/day three in her book The 40-Day Sugar Fast.  The one that I realized I am the worst at is listening.  Ask God what He wants to do in my life, my heart, this fast...and then listen.  So this week as I praise God in His victory of crumbing strongholds in my life, I will incline my heart to His Word.  And listen.