[Faith-talk] FW: [URCTCPrayerGroup2] URCTC Prayer Group 2 Devotional: Dieting vs. Fasting - Part 1 by Lisa Bevere

[Eric Calhoun]

Original Message: 
From: BeeJay <beejayokla at cox.net>
To: "BlessTheLordOhMySoul at yahoogroups.com"
<BlessTheLordOhMySoul at yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [URCTCPrayerGroup2] URCTC Prayer Group 2 Devotional: Dieting vs.
Fasting - Part 1 by Lisa Bevere
Date: 
Sun, 02 May 2010 23:15:14 -0500


      Dieting vs. Fasting - Part 1
     
<http://messengerinternational.blogspot.com/2010/04/dieting-vs-fasting-part-1
.html>


God told me to stop dieting... then, He told me to do a fast.

This would seem a contradiction since both are a restriction of food. 
Although, the difference lies in the *purpose or motive* that inspires 
them. A diet is designed to help you lose or gain weight. A change of 
diet may also be initiated to improve or correct health problems. 
Dieting is a natural application that alters our physical wellbeing, 
weight or health. It changes the way we look or feel.

Fasting is different. Fasting is not for weight gain or loss. Nor is it 
limited to natural healing. It is not designed to change the way we look 
and feel but to change the way we perceive and live. A diet may change 
the way you look, but a fast will change the way you see. A diet may 
change your appearance, but a fast will change the way you live, 
altering your inner perspective. The world has perverted and reduced the 
fast, diminishing it to a diet. As such, it is not a spiritual renewal, 
but a physical one. But the deepest transformations are brought about 
from the inside out.

Before my confrontation with truth, I'd really only fasted to lose 
weight. Granted, I might have done a combination fast and diet, using 
reasoning such as this: I need to lose weight, and I need direction, so 
I'll fast and accomplish both. But on this type of fast, food and weight 
are still the focus. I have searched the Scriptures and found no 
reference in God's Word to a fast prescribed for weight loss. Your focus 
or motive on a fast will be your reward. If God isn't the center, it 
will be reduced to merely a time of denial.

Read more on this topic in Lisa Bevere's book, You Are Not What You 
Weigh.
<https://www2.messengerinternational.org/product.asp?id=ENGBKSL003A>