What is a True Fast?

"No one sews a patch of  unshrunken cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new patch pulls away from the old cloth,  and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wine skins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the skins. But new wine is for fresh wine skins." Mark 2:21,22

Jesus said this after defending his disciples who chose not to fast as the scribes and Pharisees did. To receive and appropriate the new life Jesus was offering the listeners had to also take a brand new mindset, a new frame of reference. In other words we must be born again, receive a new spirit and a new heart.

New information can never fully be appreciated with old mindsets. We see this again and again throughout time. The old will persecute the new because the new does not fit the old frame of reference. The listeners want to judge what is heard by what they know. Now, at times what we know about scripture in judging moral behaviour is right. However, when God does a new thing in ways of worship, and it is obvious He is involved and it is not man made.

The importance thing is that we discern truth. Is this God, or is this man? The scribes and Pharisees had instituted a fast twice a week. God did not call for this fast. In fact in times gone by He had said the fast He was more interested in was loosing the bonds of wickedness. Fasting for fastings sake did not impress our God. Fasting to know Him did, but these men were not seeking Him, they were merely conducting a ritual.

What are our motives? Are we governed by fear or faith? Pride or humility? Amen!


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