Category
VERSES ABOUT FASTING
Fasting helps me grow closer to God and strengthens my relationship with my Heavenly Father. I try not to see it as something I do for my own benefit, but as a way to improve my walk with God. It's a voluntary choice, a time when I set aside the physical need for food to nourish my spirit. It's a special time to seek God's presence, which is why I find it helpful to fast in a quiet place where I can talk with Him alone.
The Bible talks about this too. Daniel 9:31 says, "So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes." It's really inspiring to see how people in the Bible sought God through fasting.
Jesus kept on teaching the people. Some of those people used to stop eating for a while, so they can think about God and respect him. Jesus said, “Whenever you stop eating for a while, make sure you look the same as you always look. You know, there are some people that want everyone to think they are good, even though they are not good. Whenever they stop eating food to respect God, they want everyone to know what they are doing, so they let their faces get dirty, and they try to look sad. They want people to say, ‘That’s a good person.’ But listen, that is all those people will get. God will not give them anything good for doing that. Don’t be like them.When you stop eating for God, just be normal and look the same as you always look. Wash your face and comb your hair.Then nobody will know that you have stopped eating. But God your father knows. Nobody can see him, but he sees everything you do. He will see what you do in a secret way, and he will be properly good to you for it.”
At one time, Barnabas and Saul, and those other men, they stopped eating food for a while, and they prayed to God. At that time, the Holy Spirit said to them, “Pick out Barnabas and Saul for me now. I’ve got special work for them to do.”It was about 450 years from the time they went to Egypt, to the time they got that country. Then God picked leaders for them, so they always had a leader to look after them. After lots of other leaders, God picked Samuel to be their leader. He was a man that told God’s messages to the people.Samuel was their leader, but the people wanted a big boss that would always tell them what to do. So God gave them Saul. He was the son of Kish. Saul belonged to the Benjamin tribe, and he was the big boss over the Israel people for 40 years. Then God stopped Saul from being their big boss, and God picked David, and he made David the big boss over the Israel people. And God said this, ‘Look at this man, David, the son of Jesse. He is a man that makes me happy. He will do everything that I want him to do.’And God promised that a man from David’s family will come to save us Israel people. And now that man has come. His name is Jesus.But before Jesus came, John the Baptiser came and talked to us Israel people. He said, ‘Stop doing bad things. Turn around. Turn back to God, and then I will baptise you.’And John said, ‘Who do you reckon I am? Do you think I’m that special man that God promised to send to save his people? No way. He will come later. I am nothing. I’m not good enough to touch his feet or untie his shoes.’ That’s what John told everyone when he was finishing his work. Listen, friends. Some of you are Jews that belong to our grand-father Abraham’s family, and some of you are not Jews but you respect our God. All of you have to listen to this message that God sent to us. It is about how God wants to save us.A long time ago, the men that told God’s messages to people wrote those words in his book. They said that God will send a special man, but people will kill him. And people read those words from God’s book in their meetings every Saturday, but they don’t understand them. The people in Jerusalem and their leaders didn’t know that Jesus was that special man, and they said, ‘We have to kill him.’So, even though he didn’t do anything wrong, they asked Pilate, the Roman judge, to kill him anyway.That’s how Jesus died, just like those men wrote in God’s book. And after they killed Jesus, they took him down from the cross and put him into a grave.So those men kept on praying and not eating any food for a bit longer. Then they put their hands on Barnabas and Saul, and they prayed for them and told them, “You can go now and do God’s work.”
The Holy Spirit made Jesus very powerful, and he went back to Galilee country. The people that saw him kept on telling other people about him, and those people told more people, so that soon everyone there heard the news about him.He went to the Jewish meeting houses every week, and he taught everyone about God. And they were all really happy with him.Then Jesus went to his own town, called Nazareth. That was the town he grew up in. He went to the Jewish meeting house there on Saturday, like he always did, and he stood up to read to the people from God’s book.A helper there gave him the part that Isaiah wrote. Isaiah was a man that told everyone God’s messages, a long time ago. Jesus opened the book to the right place, and he read these words.“God’s spirit came into me. He picked me to tell good news to poor people. He sent me to tell prisoners, ‘You will go free.’ And he sent me to tell blind people, ‘You will see.’ And he sent me to people that are in big trouble, to take their trouble away.He sent me to tell everybody, ‘This is the time now for God to be good to you.’ ”
Then, in each town, Paul and Barnabas picked leaders for the Christians in the church there. After that, they stopped eating for a while, and they prayed for those leaders. They prayed, “Jesus, our leader, these men believe in you now, so we ask you to look after them all the time.”
So they all met together at Mizpah. They got some water from a spring and poured it on the ground. That was their way to tell God that they felt shamed. They were sorry that they showed respect to those statues. On that day they didn’t eat any food as they prayed to him. They prayed like this, “Our God, we did wrong things. We didn’t follow your way.” That’s the way Samuel led the people to go the right way.
So, if your husband or wife wants to sleep with you, to do what married people do together, you can’t say, “No.” But both of you can agree to wait for a while without sleeping together, so you can use the time to pray. Then, soon after that, you have to sleep together again. If you don’t, Satan might trick you. He knows you can’t control yourselves very well. If you go too long without sleeping together, then he will try to get one of you to sleep with somebody else.
So David prayed to God and asked him strongly to make the baby better. David didn’t eat any food, and he slept all night on the hard floor. He didn’t sleep on a soft bed.
Cornelius said, “4 days ago I was praying in my house at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Suddenly I saw a man wearing bright shining clothes standing in front of me.And he said to me, ‘Cornelius, God heard you pray, and he knows that you give money and things to poor people.
Then nobody will know that you have stopped eating. But God your father knows. Nobody can see him, but he sees everything you do. He will see what you do in a secret way, and he will be properly good to you for it.”
I control my body, and I make it do what is right. I want God to give me that good prize. I don’t want God to say to me, “You went wrong. You didn’t do what you told other people to do. So you don’t get new life.”
Every year it was like that. Whenever they went up to God’s house at Shiloh, Penninah used to make fun of Hannah until she cried. She felt so sad she couldn’t eat.Her husband used to ask her, “Why are you crying? You have to eat. Don’t be sad. Don’t keep on worrying that you have no sons. I love you very much anyway.”
At one time, Barnabas and Saul, and those other men, they stopped eating food for a while, and they prayed to God. At that time, the Holy Spirit said to them, “Pick out Barnabas and Saul for me now. I’ve got special work for them to do.”
They cried until the sun went down, and they didn’t eat anything. Lots of God’s people died, so they were sad for them too, their countrymen, the Israel mob. (We have not yet translated 1:13-27.)
Then the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the bush, and the devil, the boss over the bad spirits, tested him there, trying to trick him.Jesus said to the devil, “No. I will not do that either. Satan, you go away from me now. This is what God says in his book, ‘You have to show respect to God. He is the only God, so just do what he says.’ ” Then the devil went away, and God’s angel messengers came and took care of Jesus.After that, Jesus heard that some soldiers grabbed John and put him in jail. So Jesus left Judea country and went back to Galilee country.He went to the town called Nazareth, and then he left that town and went to live in the town called Capernium. It was beside the big lake called Lake Galilee. It was in the country where the Zebulun tribe and the Naphtali tribe used to live.All that happened just like God says in his book. Isaiah was a man that told everyone God’s words, and a long time ago, he wrote this in God’s book,“It will happen in the country that belongs to the Zebulun tribe and the Naphtali tribe. It is beside the sea, past the Jordan River, in Galilee country, where there are a lot of people that are not Jews.The people there don’t know much about God. It is like they are in the dark, but they will see a big bright light. They thought they were going to die, but a light will start to shine for them.” Then Jesus started to tell everybody, “Listen. God is going to show everyone how they can be in his family. So you have to stop doing bad things. You have to turn around and live God’s way.” One day, Jesus walked along next to Lake Galilee, and he saw 2 men throwing a net into the water to catch fish. That was their job. One man was called Simon. He was also called Peter. And the other man was his brother Andrew.Jesus said, “I want you 2 to come and follow me. I want you to stop catching fish. I’ll give you another job. You will catch people for me.”Jesus was there for 40 days, and he didn’t eat anything, so he got very hungry.And straight away, they left their nets and followed him.Then Jesus kept walking along next to the water, and he saw an old man called Zebedee and his 2 sons, James and John. They were getting their nets ready to catch fish. Like before, Jesus called out to James and John to stop their work and follow him.They got up straight away. They left their father, and the boat, and they followed Jesus.After that, Jesus went through all of Galilee country. He taught people in the Jewish meeting houses, and he told them the good news about God’s family. And he made a lot of sick people better. They had all sorts of sickness.Then people started to tell other people about Jesus, so that people as far away as Syria country heard about the things he did, and they all started to bring lots of sick people to Jesus. And Jesus made them all better, no matter what sort of sickness they had. Some of them used to fall down and shake a lot, and some of them couldn’t move their arms or legs, and some of them had bad spirits in them. But Jesus made them all better.A big mob of people followed him everywhere he went. These people were from Galilee country, and from the country called Ten Towns, and from Jerusalem city, and from all over Judea country, and from the country east of the Jordan River.At that time the devil came to him and said, “If you are the son of God, tell these stones to turn into loaves of bread.”But Jesus told him, “No. I will not do that. You know what God says. These words are in his book, ‘People don’t live just by eating bread, but they live by every word that God says.’ ”
Just before day-light came, Paul tried to get everyone to eat some food. He said, “For the past 14 days you were too worried, and you didn’t eat anything.So now I’m telling you, you’ve got to eat some food, so you will get stronger and stay alive. I know that none of you will drown.”
and buried the bones under the big tree there. For the next 7 days they ate no food. They just sat sadly together and felt sorry for Saul.
Jesus kept on teaching the people. Some of those people used to stop eating for a while, so they can think about God and respect him. Jesus said, “Whenever you stop eating for a while, make sure you look the same as you always look. You know, there are some people that want everyone to think they are good, even though they are not good. Whenever they stop eating food to respect God, they want everyone to know what they are doing, so they let their faces get dirty, and they try to look sad. They want people to say, ‘That’s a good person.’ But listen, that is all those people will get. God will not give them anything good for doing that. Don’t be like them.
But I am good. On 2 days every week I don’t eat any food to show that I respect you. And whenever I get some money, I give you some of it, like $1 out of every $10. I do all those things, so you have to say I am all right.’
So they all met together at Mizpah. They got some water from a spring and poured it on the ground. That was their way to tell God that they felt shamed. They were sorry that they showed respect to those statues. On that day they didn’t eat any food as they prayed to him. They prayed like this, “Our God, we did wrong things. We didn’t follow your way.” That’s the way Samuel led the people to go the right way.After the bosses from Philistia heard that the Israel mob came together at Mizpah, they took their soldiers to that place. The Israel mob heard they were coming, and they got frightened.So they said to Samuel, “Pray to God for us. Keep on praying, don’t stop. Ask him to save us from the Philistia mob.”
Cornelius said, “4 days ago I was praying in my house at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Suddenly I saw a man wearing bright shining clothes standing in front of me.
Then the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the bush, and the devil, the boss over the bad spirits, tested him there, trying to trick him.Jesus said to the devil, “No. I will not do that either. Satan, you go away from me now. This is what God says in his book, ‘You have to show respect to God. He is the only God, so just do what he says.’ ” Then the devil went away, and God’s angel messengers came and took care of Jesus.
After Nathan went home, God made David and Bathsheba’s baby boy really sick.So David prayed to God and asked him strongly to make the baby better. David didn’t eat any food, and he slept all night on the hard floor. He didn’t sleep on a soft bed.Some of his important working men came to see him. They tried to make him get up. They tried to make him eat some food. But nothing. He did not want to eat anything with them.After 7 days the baby died. David’s working men were afraid to tell him the bad news. They said to each other, “While the baby was alive, we tried to talk to him, but he didn’t listen to us. We can’t tell him this bad news, or he might hurt himself.”But David saw that his working men talked quietly to each other like that. He worked out that the baby died. So he asked them, “Is the baby dead?” They answered, “Yes.”The rich man had big mobs of sheep, goats, cows and bulls,Then David got up from the floor and washed himself, and he rubbed himself with perfume. Then he put on some clean clothes. He went into God’s ceremony house and got down on his knees to show respect to God, and to pray. Then he went back to his own house and told his working men to bring him some food to eat.His working men were confused. They said, “What’s going on? While the baby was alive, you lay on the floor. You cried, and you ate nothing. But after he died, you got up and ate. We don’t understand. Why didn’t you cry after he died?”He answered, “While the baby was alive, I lay on the floor. I cried, and I ate nothing. I thought, ‘Maybe God will be sorry for me. Maybe he will make the baby better again.’But now he is dead. Even if I don’t eat food now, I can’t make him alive again. I know that one day I will die too, and I will go to the place where he is. But he can’t come back here to me now.”
And Jesus said, “I’ll tell you the right way to pray. Go away from other people to a place where you can be alone, like go into a little room in your house and close the door. There you can pray to God, your father. He is in that secret place. And he sees what you do. He will listen to you, and he will be properly good to you for respecting him.
While Joseph and Mary were talking to Simeon, a very old woman came along. Her name was Anna. She saw Jesus, and she thanked God for him. Some of the people there were waiting for God to send somebody to help the Jewish people. Anna told them about Jesus, that he is that special person. Anna’s father was Fanuel, and he belonged to the tribe called Asher. She was 84 years old. A long time before this, Anna was a young woman and she got married. But then after 7 years her husband died. After that, she stayed in God’s ceremony house all the time, telling the people God’s words. She prayed all the time, in the day time and at night, and often she didn’t eat any food because she was praying.
Barnabas and Saul, and some other men in the church in Antioch, used to tell people God’s messages and teach them God’s word. Those other men were Simeon (his other name was Niger), and Lucius from the country called Cyrene, and Manen (he grew up with Herod, the big boss).and said, “You are just like the devil, the boss over the bad spirits. You tell a lot of lies, and you do a lot of bad things. You try to stop everything that is good, and you try to change God’s true story, and you lie about him. You are trying to trick people. You have to stop doing that.God will punish you now. He will make you blind, and you will not see the sunlight for a while.” Suddenly Elimas felt himself going blind, and he walked around asking somebody to hold his hand and take him to the place he wanted to go to.The Roman boss saw all that happen, and he heard everything Paul said about our leader Jesus. He thought, “Wow. This message is really good.” So he believed in Jesus.Paul and his friends got on a ship and left Pafos, on Cyprus Island, and they sailed to the town called Perga, in the country called Pamfilia. Then John Mark left them there, and he went back to Jerusalem.Paul and Barnabas went on from Perga to another town called Antioch, in the country called Pisidia. Then on Saturday, the day the Jews get together to show respect to God, Paul and Barnabas went into the Jewish meeting house, and they sat down with the men there.Some of the leaders in that meeting read from God’s book. They read words from the law that Moses wrote, and they read other words that God’s men wrote a long time ago. Then the leaders said to Paul and Barnabas, “Friends, if you have something to say that will help the people here, go ahead and say it.”So Paul stood up and lifted up his hand to get the people to be quiet and listen to him. Then he said, “All you Jewish men and all you other people that respect God, listen to me.A long time ago, the God of us Jewish people picked our grand-fathers to be his own people. They went to the country called Egypt to live, and while they were there, God made them strong, and they had a lot of kids. So they became a really big mob of people. Then God used his great power to take them out of that country.Then they were in the desert country for 40 years. Sometimes they didn’t listen to God, but he looked after them anyway.Then they got to the country called Canaan, and God helped them fight against 7 different tribes, and they won. They killed all their enemies, and God gave that country to his own people to keep. At one time, Barnabas and Saul, and those other men, they stopped eating food for a while, and they prayed to God. At that time, the Holy Spirit said to them, “Pick out Barnabas and Saul for me now. I’ve got special work for them to do.”It was about 450 years from the time they went to Egypt, to the time they got that country. Then God picked leaders for them, so they always had a leader to look after them. After lots of other leaders, God picked Samuel to be their leader. He was a man that told God’s messages to the people.Samuel was their leader, but the people wanted a big boss that would always tell them what to do. So God gave them Saul. He was the son of Kish. Saul belonged to the Benjamin tribe, and he was the big boss over the Israel people for 40 years. Then God stopped Saul from being their big boss, and God picked David, and he made David the big boss over the Israel people. And God said this, ‘Look at this man, David, the son of Jesse. He is a man that makes me happy. He will do everything that I want him to do.’And God promised that a man from David’s family will come to save us Israel people. And now that man has come. His name is Jesus.But before Jesus came, John the Baptiser came and talked to us Israel people. He said, ‘Stop doing bad things. Turn around. Turn back to God, and then I will baptise you.’And John said, ‘Who do you reckon I am? Do you think I’m that special man that God promised to send to save his people? No way. He will come later. I am nothing. I’m not good enough to touch his feet or untie his shoes.’ That’s what John told everyone when he was finishing his work. Listen, friends. Some of you are Jews that belong to our grand-father Abraham’s family, and some of you are not Jews but you respect our God. All of you have to listen to this message that God sent to us. It is about how God wants to save us.A long time ago, the men that told God’s messages to people wrote those words in his book. They said that God will send a special man, but people will kill him. And people read those words from God’s book in their meetings every Saturday, but they don’t understand them. The people in Jerusalem and their leaders didn’t know that Jesus was that special man, and they said, ‘We have to kill him.’So, even though he didn’t do anything wrong, they asked Pilate, the Roman judge, to kill him anyway.That’s how Jesus died, just like those men wrote in God’s book. And after they killed Jesus, they took him down from the cross and put him into a grave.So those men kept on praying and not eating any food for a bit longer. Then they put their hands on Barnabas and Saul, and they prayed for them and told them, “You can go now and do God’s work.”
Jesus was there for 40 days, and he didn’t eat anything, so he got very hungry.And straight away, they left their nets and followed him.Then Jesus kept walking along next to the water, and he saw an old man called Zebedee and his 2 sons, James and John. They were getting their nets ready to catch fish. Like before, Jesus called out to James and John to stop their work and follow him.They got up straight away. They left their father, and the boat, and they followed Jesus.After that, Jesus went through all of Galilee country. He taught people in the Jewish meeting houses, and he told them the good news about God’s family. And he made a lot of sick people better. They had all sorts of sickness.Then people started to tell other people about Jesus, so that people as far away as Syria country heard about the things he did, and they all started to bring lots of sick people to Jesus. And Jesus made them all better, no matter what sort of sickness they had. Some of them used to fall down and shake a lot, and some of them couldn’t move their arms or legs, and some of them had bad spirits in them. But Jesus made them all better.A big mob of people followed him everywhere he went. These people were from Galilee country, and from the country called Ten Towns, and from Jerusalem city, and from all over Judea country, and from the country east of the Jordan River.At that time the devil came to him and said, “If you are the son of God, tell these stones to turn into loaves of bread.”But Jesus told him, “No. I will not do that. You know what God says. These words are in his book, ‘People don’t live just by eating bread, but they live by every word that God says.’ ”
After Nathan went home, God made David and Bathsheba’s baby boy really sick.So David prayed to God and asked him strongly to make the baby better. David didn’t eat any food, and he slept all night on the hard floor. He didn’t sleep on a soft bed.
When you stop eating for God, just be normal and look the same as you always look. Wash your face and comb your hair.
Then some things fell down from Saul’s eyes. They were like fish scales, or like finger nails. After that, Saul could see again. He got up, and the Christians there baptised him.Then he ate some food, and he got strong again. Saul stayed in Damascus for a few days with the people that followed Jesus.
Those people that run in races, they control themselves and train their bodies so they can win a prize, even though that prize will only be good for a little while. But it is better for us. We control ourselves properly so that we will win a prize that will be good for ever. God will give us new life, so that we will live for ever.So, you see, I’m like a good runner that runs in a straight line to the end of the race. And I’m like a fighter that hits and doesn’t miss.I control my body, and I make it do what is right. I want God to give me that good prize. I don’t want God to say to me, “You went wrong. You didn’t do what you told other people to do. So you don’t get new life.”
Find out for yourself that God is really good. Look at all the things he does. Whenever you get trouble, ask God to look after you. He will do that, and he will make you really happy.