Why Fast II? part 3

When a person is saved, the Spirit of the Lord entering into their heart transforms them to a certain degree. Fasting assists and furthers this process because of what it does to the mind. 

Let’s go back to the young mom from Lodi, WI and look at what was going on in her heart. One of the physical benefits of fasting is that it cleanses. It cleanses the body of toxins and various poisons that have built up within our systems. The primary reason we have headaches and body aches while fasting is because of the things being dumped into our blood. When we fast, our bodies redirect energy from digestion to house-cleaning. The entire body turns into a refinery. 

The blood acts as a sewer system and removes the toxins. With our cells cleansed of toxins we experience a newness of life. Every nerve fiber in our body will come alive and our senses will be sharper. When we eat, blood rushes to our stomach; when we exercise, blood rushes to our muscles. But when we do neither of those two things (neither eating, nor exercising) when we fast, blood rushes to the mind. All of our senses become sharper during an extended fast. This is why, on an extended fast, many people receive revelation; their mind is sharper. 
 

In the book of Leviticus we read of when the priests would offer an animal as a sacrifice to God. They would trim off the fat of the animal along with some of its internal organs and burn it on the altar. Leviticus 3:16 “The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering, a pleasing aroma. All the fat is the Lord’s.” 
 

The burning of the fat rises as a sweet-smelling savor unto the Lord. When we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, the fat, which burns during the fast, rises up as something sweet to the Lord. However, this does not mean that Jesus just loves the smell of burning fat; it’s that the fat represents the carnal life. Fasting burns up carnal thinking.   
 

The same thing happens spiritually when we fast, as it does physically. After three days of fasting at the Solemn Assembly Pastor Ron was leading in Lodi, the junk in people’s lives began to come to the surface and they were ridding themselves of it through confession. It may have taken a little longer for the young mom whom the Lord told was lukewarm, but she eventually laid it out on the altar - and that is what pleases the Lord. 
 

Now, I want to take you to at least one of the verses I read in my devotional readings this past week. In Luke 20, Jesus was being challenged about the resurrection by the Sadducees, who did not believe in a resurrection (which is why they are "sad, you see"). Trying to trap Jesus yet again, they asked Him about a widow who ended up marrying seven brothers because they kept dying on her. She married the first brother; he died. She married the second brother; he died. She eventually married all seven of the brothers, and they all died.

Continued tomorrow