a few lessons learned...

God's been teaching me some amazing stuff lately and i want to share some of it with you guys.

first of all, i've been studying through matthew and yeah, there's some crazy stuff going on in that book that i never noticed before. matthew 16:13-17 talks about peter's confession of Christ and before i just read over it like it was no big deal, but recently i was drawn to verses 16 and 17. verse 16 is where peter says, "you are the Christ, the Son of the living God." then in verse 17 Jesus says, "blessed are you, simon son of jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.." i'm not sure how i just skipped over how important this verse is. it basically says that people cannot say that Jesus is Christ unless God reveals it to them. it's not by our words that they will believe. it's not how good we describe the gospel. in fact, it has absolutely nothing to do with us at all! it's all God. He is the only one that can reveal things to people. i mean, peter was actually with Jesus. he saw Jesus do miracles countless times and still he could not say that Jesus was Christ without God revealing it to him! pretty amazing, huh?

last sunday, i was having a bible study with some older, experienced missionaries and we were discussing isaiah 58 which talks about true fasting. isaiah the prophet is rebuking the israelites on fasting. he says, starting in verse 3b,"yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please...your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. you cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord ?" then it goes on to say, "is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen. is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?" then a few verses later, "and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. the Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. you will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." so after much discussion i started to get a picture of how it all fit together. so i wrote down some thoughts:

true fasting is not about what we are doing without, it's not about our needs; it's about meeting others needs, going without to fill so so that it's not us meeting their needs but God, because we ourselves are empty. it's about giving and trusting God when we have nothing.

then after more discussion i wrote down:

or... it's about having and giving that which we have away.

at this point God gave me this picture..
imagine you have a big juicy apple. i imagined a fuji apple because those are really popular here and i love them. so you have this fuji apple that you are about to eat and God says, "don't eat that apple". so you, being the obedient christian that you are, put the apple aside and think, "no big deal. i'll just eat it tomorrow". then a hungry person walks by and God says, "give them the apple".

you know, sometimes we're so caught up on our acts, or works that we miss the things that God really wants us to do. one of the missionaries mentioned how often he is like the priest in the story of the good samaritan in luke 10:30-35. he said sometimes he is so focused on his mission, his obedience to God that he misses the people he could be helping. if God said that we should "spend" ourselves in bahalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed instead of just fasting by ourselves, then that just shows me how much of a selfish person i really am. i always make fasting about myself going without food, my want to please God, my act for Him, when God clearly states over and over it's not about us.