Fasting trains me to have LESS in order to be MORE
D parable [anecdote, illustration / teaching story] that Jesus calls the most important [significant, impactful…mother of all parables], D PARABLE OF THE SOWER (see footnote at the end of this post), identifies 4 ground [_heart] types:
1.Way-side ground / heart: has hard soil
2.Stony ground / heart: has shallow soil
3.Thorny ground / heart: has thorns&bristles
4.Good ground / heart: has no hard soil, no shallow soil, no thorns&bristles
Grounds 1:3 have MORE of those stuff, but NO fruit!
Ground 4 has LESS of those stuff, but produces 30-fold, 60-fold & 100-fold fruit!
Fasting helps us to do away with some stuff; to have LESS:
– LESS food & drinks (+ body mass😊)
– LESS pleasures, addictions (cravings of the flesh…lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes & pride of life_)
– LESS noise (distractions of d world & enticements/deceptions/lies of satan)
_ Like an athlete I discipline [tame] my body [flesh], training it to do what it should, not what it wants…,_ 1 Corinthians 9:27
Real GOAL?
A spiritually healthy & FRUITFUL HEART!*:
1. LESS hardness of heart towards God’s Word: to never seek [hinger, thirst] to understand it
2. LESS shallowness of heart: to not deeply meditate on God’s Word always. Hence The Seed, God’s Word never takes root in myself, in my heart
3. LESS thorns&bristles-filled heart: that allows d cares & pleasures of this life / world to CHOKE God’s Word in my heart.
And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive [obedient, God-Willed] heart, Ezekiel 36:26
As we do so, we become MORE:
– MORE Spiritually ascendant, dominant, as the flesh is subdued: PRIORITIZE more d understanding of God’s Word
– MORE perceptive: seeing, hearing …in the spirit: meditate MORE on God’s Word till it TAKES ROOT in me
– MORE wholehearted: d cares & affairs of this world, d world’s riches & status / power take up NO space in my heart; have NO HOLD on me
– MORE fruitful in: Agape Love, Compassion, Kindness, Gentleness Forgiving, Patience, Self-control, faithfulness…
…U will seek Me & find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart, Jeremiah 29:13
7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. …8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for Whom I have suffered the loss of all things, & count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ … 10 that I may know Him & the power of His Resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,… Philippians 3
Footnote
Parable of The Sower (Matthew 13:3-23; Mark 4:3-20 & Luke 8:5-15)
Excerpt:
3 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: Behold, a sower went out to sow 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear! …
18 “Therefore hear the parable of the sower: 19 When anyone hears the Word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one [devil] comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart [lest he should believe & be saved]. 20 But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the Word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the Word, immediately he stumbles. 22 Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the Word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word, and he becomes unfruitful. 23 But he Who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the Word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty, Matthew 13