Benefits of Fasting

Since a few people I know are fasting right now, I decided to write a little bit about the benefits of fasting.  Here’s a short list:

1. Righteousness

Of course, in order for fasting to work, we need to do it right.  If the only thing our fasting produces is anger and frustration, it’s not right (Isaiah 58:3-4).  If we fast only to be humble, bowed down and feeling sorry for stuff, it’s wrong (seriously, read Isaiah 58:5).  When we fast, we should bring justice, freedom and mercy to the people around us.  We should be feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked.  Basically, if your fasting is not producing righteousness, you’re not doing it right (Isaiah 58:6-10)!  If you think about it, this just makes sense.  As you grow closer to God through fasting, He should rub off on you more than usual.  And God is righteous!

2. Closeness to God

Well, I already mentioned this in the last few sentences of number 1, but it’s so true!  When you fast and seek after God, He will draw near to you.  Do you need direction in your life?  How about some revelation?  Try fasting.  After Daniel fasted for three weeks (Dan. 10:2-3), God sent an angel to give him a great revelation.  If God can do that for Daniel, He can do it for us as well.

3. Blessings

Yeah, I know it may sound a little selfish, but I want blessing from God!  In the book of Joel, Israel was in a bad state.  All of their crops had just been destroyed by an infestation of locusts.  So, what did God tell them to do?  That’s right, He told them to fast!  After they returned to God, He promised to bless their land with everything they needed and more.  God really does care for us, you know.  I think that sometimes He’s waiting for us to get serious about Him before He deals out the goodness.

Our verse of the day is Joel 2:22.  I found this verse on the Campus Harvest trip about a month ago.  Our bus had gotten lost, so we had to miss some of the conference in order to have dinner.  I really wanted to be on time to the meeting, so I tried to act all holy and spit out some garbage about getting our whole bus to fast because the Bible says it’s good.  My friend Liz insisted that the Bible has tons of stuff to say about eating food being good too.  Then I foolishly challenged her to find a verse about it, [thinking at the time, but definitely not now that] she didn’t know any.  Unfortunately for me, the random verse that she got off the top of her head (from God, maybe?) was Joel 2:22, which actually has to do with food.  I was greatly humbled.  So all this to say, God doesn’t want us to be miserable all the time.  He wants to give us blessings as well! 

I think it’s okay to say that one of the benefits of fasting is getting to eat at the end of it…

“Be not afraid, O wild animals, for the open pastures are becoming green.  The trees are bearing their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches.” -Joel 2:22

The Holy Spirit is Awesome

I love when God speaks to me.  It really is an amazing experience.  I’d just like to encourage all of you, that when God has given you a word for someone, to speak it.  I know I’ve regretted not speaking up in the past.  I truly believe that when God gives you a supernatural dream or vision, it’s for a good reason.  If you know that that reason is to share it with others, then not sharing is disobedience to God (sin).

If you’re not willing to step out and obey God, then who will?  Sometimes God will move on to somebody else; maybe the blessing you were meant to receive will be given to another.  It’s happened to me a few times before.  One time, I had a vision at a men’s camping trip last Spring during a time of prayer.  In it, I saw a heap of glowing charcoal, and one lone coal was separated from the rest.  The problem with the single coal is that it was quickly cooling off, while the rest of the coals were keeping each other hot.  I knew that God was speaking to all of us praying there, that we all needed to stay connected to God and each other, for the purpose of staying strong in the faith.  I really knew that it was a word from the Lord, but I was too scared to say anything.  Long story short, a few minutes later, our campus pastor Ross Middleton shared a vision he had seen.  It was the exact same one as mine!  I guess someone really needed to hear it.  It made me sad that I was too afraid to step out in faith, and failed God in the process.

Thankfully, God has been changing me.  Now I find it much easier to share things like that.  I’m hoping that the Holy Spirit can change me even more, enough to be completely free of fear! 

Hopefully my testimony has been a sufficient warning against you staying silent.  Please, readers, don’t ever be afraid to speak the truth.  It doesn’t matter how uncomfortable you are; you need to obey God.  I’ll leave you with these words of Jesus:

“I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” -John 15:5

Redundancy.

Hello, my many readers out there!  Welcome to my new blog.  I’ve decided, thanks to a few friends, to move my blog here from myspace.  I haven’t written very many blogs in my lifetime, but I’ve been thinking about blogging regularly just to get a little discipline in my life.  I know I think about a lot of things, and sometimes I suppose it’s good to share.

 I’ll start off my blogging adventure by explaining the meaning of the name Redundancy.  There’s actually a very good reason I chose that name, and I’ll share that reason with you.  First of all, contrary to what you may believe, redundancy is not always a bad thing.  Maybe having someone tell you something multiple times can get a bit annoying, but if it’s important, I believe it can be essential to growth.

I know that in my own life, it takes a few times to get through to me.  I may “know” something already, but I may not have the experience and roots to back it up.  Sometimes, to really learn something, you need to repeat it.  As someone once told me, “practice makes permanent.”

This is the purpose of my blog: to remind you (and myself) of the things that are important in life: faith, hope and love.  Hopefully, if you’ve read the Bible, these thoughts I’ll be writing down will seem strangely familiar.  I’m going to try my best to write about relevant topics, because they’re important.  We may think we know it all already, but I’m sure we could all use a little more redundancy.  I’ll leave you with this verse:

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” -Hebrews 13:8