Today,
reply is on the sacred practices of prayer and fasting. Fasting,
offerings, pledges, prayers, and sacrifices were relied on by the
early patriarchs and seers when requesting or seeking spiritual
deliverance, sacred events (we say, miracles), and visions from
divinity. Also, anointing, changing ones garments, fasting,
isolation, meditation, and prayer were used by believers to show
themselves sanctified and set apart for divine service. The
priesthood begun with Adam as the performance of divine ceremony and
memorial on the earth would become continued as an inheritance to
mankind appearing through obedience to divine law, ministry, prophecy
(i.e., comfort, edification, exhortation), and unselfish service.
For Christian believers, the process and substance of ones lifestyle
and regular practice are to be spirit in their character, makeup,
origin, and outcome, rather than merely a peculiar expression of
appetite, self-discipline, willpower, or other workings of the flesh.
While all Christians are welcome to drink the blood and eat the body
of Jesus using the emblems of bread and wine, the Lord’s
Supper (we also say, Communion) pertains to abstaining from or
partaking of manna and food from heaven, and centers on becoming
Christlike by receiving a fresh endowment of life essence from
the makeup of GOD. Our words are heard through the Son of GOD.
Christians are to acknowledge the life of Jesus Christ—that
includes his fasting for 40 days and 40 nights along with his cries,
prayers and works performed before and from the cross—to
now be their own achievement that continually pleads for atonement
and reconciliation with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The fighter in the “Yahoo! Answers” public forum on Religion and
Spirituality who uses the ID “Breakthrough” (Level 6 with 15,509
points, a member since June 29, 2013) posted the following:
Jesus
talks about fasting and prayer - but how is fasting different from
prayer if fasting involves more than just not eating food?
THE
GOLDEN ARROW: Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that
meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall
give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed. Then said they
unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye
believe on him whom he hath sent. They said therefore unto him, What
sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost
thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is
written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto
them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread
from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth
life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us
this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he
that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me
shall never thirst. (John 6: 27-35, King James Version, KJV)
THE
DOUBLE DAGGER: Will You Lose Family? (01/20/2019); Sanctify
Yourselves for Tomorrow (05/07/2017); GOD’s
Peculiar People (12/11/2016); His Children Are Sanctified
(10/12/2016); GOD’s Way Not
Equal? (07/17/2016); Getting It Right About Angels (05/10/2015);
Anointed? (04/28/2014); No More “Mr. Nice Guy”? (04/29/2014);
About Sabbath (10/16/2013); We Shall Behold Him (10/17/2013)
“Breakthrough”,
at one time it was understood that prayer and fasting together were
required to receive a vision from GOD. In Christian belief mankind
must acknowledge dependence upon spirit process and substance, rather
than things carnal, material, and social. Prayer and fasting appear
to be paired throughout the Scriptures as two major aspects of
private devotion and supplication. While the two sacred practices
demonstrate commitment, determination, and perseverance, the two also
display humility, meekness, memorial, and acceptance of divine
chastening. Once GOD has made an answer, divinity does not “change
his mind,” or repent. The final decisions in judgment, the
proclamations, and the promises of GOD are immutable and unchanging.
Divinity can not be influenced or manipulated by the gifts,
offerings, and sacrifices of those on the earth; and the two sacred
practices are more correctly understood as aspects of active
ministry, priesthood, and spiritual deliverance. Through unselfish
service that appear as prayer and fasting Christian believers may
accomplish confession, intercession, restraint of appetite, and
thanksgiving on behalf of the entire church body. Consider the
following that uses language from the Bible:
1.
Deuteronomy 8: 1-5, King James Version (KJV): 1 All the
commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do,
that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which
the LORD sware unto your fathers. 2 And thou
shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God
led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and
to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou
wouldest keep his commandments, or no. 3 And he humbled thee, and
suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest
not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that
man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man
live. 4 Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot
swell, these forty years. 5 Thou shalt also consider in thine heart,
that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD
thy God chasteneth thee. 6 Therefore thou shalt keep the
commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his
ways, and to fear him.
2.
Daniel 9: 1-5, KJV: 1 In the first year of Darius the son of
Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the
realm of the Chaldeans; 2 In the first year of his reign I Daniel
understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the
LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would
accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. 3 And I
set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications,
with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes: 4 And I prayed unto the LORD
my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and
dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him,
and to them that keep his commandments; 5 We have sinned, and have
committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even
by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments:
3.
Matthew 4: 1-4, KJV: 1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into
the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. 2 And when he had fasted
forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. 3 And when
the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command
that these stones be made bread. 4 But he answered and said, It is
written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
4.
Romans 8: 26-27, KJV: 26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our
infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought:
but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which
cannot be uttered. 27 And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what
is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for
the saints according to the will of God.
There
is far more that should be said, correctly examined, and spiritually
apprehended. (For example, 5. Isaiah 58: 5-7, KJV: 5 Is it such a
fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is
it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and
ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable
day to the LORD? 6 Is not this the fast
that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the
heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break
every yoke? 7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and
that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou
seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself
from thine own flesh?) Even so, I trust this fragment will be
useful. Be it unto you according to your faith.
AN
AFTERTHOUGHT: The Prophet Jonah was dispatched to a city of the
Gentiles, Nineveh of Assyria, to require fasting and prayer be made
by the entire kingdom. There, completing the sacred practices were
announced as a condition for deliverance from mandatory judgment
events that would mean their extinction. Even the animals were to
acknowledge the sovereign will of GOD, appease divine wrath against
sin, and demonstrate obedience, repentance, and respect. It is
written: Jonah 3: 6-8, King James Version (KJV): 6 For word came
unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid
his robe from him, and covered him
with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he caused it
to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the
king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor
flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: 8 But
let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto
God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the
violence that is
in their hands.
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THE
BLACK PHOENIX
Washington,
DC
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