The pastor from Woodland Church, Brownstown, Michigan has this to say about Paul buffeting his body and fasting: "You may have heard the old joke twisting the words of the Apostle Paul to justify overeating, by saying, 'I buffet my body.' Those words actually refer to Paul's discipline of his bodily desires to line up with his inward desire to be a passionate follower of Christ. Fasting is a useful discipline to check our tendency to overindulge in good things at the expense of our discipleship. Paul also said, 'Physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things (I Timothy 4:8 NIV).'"
Before we move on with kinds of fasting - other than to check our tendency to overindulge in good things at the expense of our discipleship - listen to this as you read from Hebrews 12:10-11:
"Those whom the Lord loves He disciplines. . . He disciplines us for our good..." Our good! It goes on to say, "so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful yet to those who have been trained by it..." Those who have what? "Been trained by it." Trained by what? Discipline. "To those who have been trained by it (discipline), afterwards it (discipline) yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." It, discipline, "yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." With discipline - and buffeting our body - we will do what is right! Hallelujah!
The Lord's purpose in discipline is to encourage us to abandon our sin - the wrong things we do, the wrong way we treat our body with letting it have it's own way - it doesn't know what it needs and if it does we need to give it what it needs not what it wants or thinks it wants. That's what God does for us. Why wouldn't we do the same for our self and our body? In this way we "share His holiness." This is a better lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle. A lifestyle of peaceful living. Now let's get on with it!
Here's to your health!
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