Page 33 An Inward Discovery In the Old Testament, God gave His people a very detailed map of His moral will for them. Israel had 613 laws by which to govern their lives. Old Testament Israel was commanded to carry out specific behaviors like what clothes to wear and not wear, what kinds of food to eat and not eat, and how to build their houses. Thankfully, those laws were nailed to the cross of Jesus Christ (Col. 2:14ff). In place of the Old Covenant, which has been done away with, we have been given a New Covenant that is far better (Heb. 8-10). Under the New Covenant, the Law of God died in Christ (Rom. 7:1-6; 10:4; Gal. 2:19; 3:10-25). However, when Jesus rose again from the dead, He became a life-giving spirit, and He took up residence in each one of us (1 Cor. 15:45; Rom. 8). Christ is the fulfillment of the moral will of God. Christ, through the Holy Spirit, is the living, breathing, personified will of God. To put it another way, God’s moral will now lives inside of us as a Person. He has come in the Spirit, and the Spirit dwells in us. Thus, all the passages in the New Testament about ,being led by the Spirit refer to being led into the moral will of God. (The context of passages like Romans 8 and Galatians 5 make this clear.) Practically speaking, the Spirit of God leads us into the boundaries of the parking lot. As Christians, you and I are no longer under the Old
Why do we fast as disciples of Jesus? Because our souls feast on the glory of God. Fasting is an external expression of an internal reality. When we fast for a meal or a day or a week, we remind ourselves that more than our stomachs long for the pleasure of food, our souls long for the presence of God. We are satisfied in Him and by Him in a way that nothing in this world can compare to - not even the basic daily necessity of food. Fasting makes sense as a discipline in the Christian life only if it is connected with desire for Christ. When we fast, we say, “More than we want our hunger to cease, we want your Kingdom to come!”
David Platt