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Below is another small excerpt. Hope you are blessed:
“Then John’s disciples came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples don’t fast?” Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch would tear away from the garment, and a worse hole is made. Neither do people put new wine into old wine skins, or else the skins would burst, and the wine be spilled, and the skins ruined. No, they put new wine into fresh wine skins, and both are preserved.”” (Matthew 9:14-17 WEB)
Why did Jesus give the example of the garment and the wine skins? He was responding to John’s disciples’ question. He meant that yes, Christians will fast, but not for the purpose of mourning about God’s judgment against Israel and showing outward repentance for their sins like the Pharisees.
This new approach to fasting would not be the same as Old Covenant fasting. It would be a New Covenant fasting that is for the benefit of the Christian who practices it as led by the Holy Spirit.
In Jesus’ analogy, the patch tearing away from the garment causing a bigger hole and the wine skins bursting is telling us that we cannot mix the Old and New covenants together. It would end up becoming unprofitable for us.
Fasting would be to no effect for us if we do it with an Old Covenant mentality - it would just be voluntary starvation, without any benefits. I mean, you might shed some pounds and detox your body, but that’s just the natural benefits, not the spiritual ones.
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