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The journey to Heaven is longer than we ever think. Once we are saved, we usually think its just a few years of serving God and we'll soon be in heaven with Him but there are numerous temptations, tests and trials before we get there and many times we feel discouraged and like we'll never make it to Heaven.
Being around worldly people in places like School, work etc even makes overcoming harder as you have to overcome all their pressure of trying to make you backslide and be one of them and their attempts of trying to make you feel ashamed of being Holy.
You can be trying to do good in your Christian life but find that you are easily overcome by temptations and this makes you feel discouraged and like you will never make it to Heaven.
The spiritual secret to overcoming is subduing the flesh.
Galatians 5:17 says that the spirit lusts against the flesh and the flesh against the spirit and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things you wish to do.
The bible shows us through scripture that the flesh is subdued through fasting.
When you are in frequent fasts, it is easy to overcome the desires of the flesh because your mind is on heavenly things and you are always aware of the presence of God.
However when you are not fasting, it is easy to please the desires of the flesh because all your thoughts are on earthly things.
The bible also says that the flesh serves the law of sin, according to (Romans 7:25).
This plainly tells us that the flesh serves the law of sin, desiring to do the things you would not want to do. Therefore, it must be subdued in order to do the will of God.
Fasting subdues the flesh and the bible tells us that the flesh and its passions and desires need to be CRUCIFIED (Galatians 5:24)
Paul in Romans 8:12-13 further tells us that "If you live after the flesh, you shall die. "
Literally, meaning that if you live a life that has no fasting, the result will be that you will live after the flesh and hence, you will be overcome by the desires of the flesh.
The more you eat, the more you find worldly things fascinating and harder to overcome.
Paul also says, in 1 Corinthians 9:27 that, "I bring my body under subjection lest after I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway" Meaning that if he does not keep his body under subjection, which is achieved by fasting, he will be a castaway because he would have obeyed the desires of the flesh.
Even Jesus Himself told us in Matthew 4:4 that, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."
This tells us that as Christians, we need to have a life of prayer and fasting and not just eating physical food. It needs to be a lifestyle and not just a once in a great while thing.
Fasting was even the lifestyle of Jesus and that is why He was able to cast out the demons that His disciples failed to cast out in Matthew 17:14-21. He told them, "This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting " He did not say, since these kind of demons only go out through prayer and fasting, let me fast and then bring back your son after some days and I'll be able to pray for him but He immediately cast out the demons and they obeyed. This means He lived a life of fasting and he said that His disciples would soon join that lifestyle of fasting after He is gone since they could not mourn while the bridegroom was still with them.
Afterwards, we see many examples in the book of Acts and other books which show that the disciples and Apostles lived a life of fasting.
Paul even tells us that he is in fastings OFTEN in 2 Corinthians 11:27. This means that frequent fasting was his lifestyle.
May the Lord help us live this kind of life that we may overcome and subdue the flesh and its desires.
SHALOM
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