Tell Us What You Think About Fasting

The New Wine: Embracing the Change of Christ

1. Presence Promotes Peace

Luke 5:33 ESV

And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.”

Luke 5:34 ESV

And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?

Luke 5:35 ESV

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.”

2. Releasing the Rigid

Luke 5:36 ESV

He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old.

Luke 5:37 ESV

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed.

Luke 5:38 ESV

But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.

Luke 5:39 ESV

And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’ ”

3. Releasing the Rigid - Scene of Suffering Revealed

John 5:1 ESV

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

John 5:2 ESV

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.

John 5:3 ESV

In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.

John 5:5 ESV

One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

4. Releasing the Rigid - Seeking Willing Hearts

John 5:6 ESV

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”

John 5:7 ESV

The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”

John 5:8 ESV

Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

John 5:9 ESV

And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.

5. Releasing the Rigid - Sabbath Sign Explained

John 5:10 ESV

So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.”

John 5:11 ESV

But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’ ”

John 5:12 ESV

They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?”

John 5:13 ESV

Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.

John 5:14 ESV

Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”

John 5:15 ESV

The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.