Jesus' Character part 1 of 6

This past weekend Heath and I went away on an overnight Retreat and learned more in one weekend about Jesus than I have known in my entire 27 years of being a "christian."

There are 6 main characteristics of Jesus. We are told in the bible that we should have the same [character] as Christ Jesus. So in order for us to become more like him we must understand more about him. These 6 traits are Holiness, Contemplative, Charismatic, Social Justice, Evangelical, and Incarnational.

Since there are 6 characteristics and so much to say about each of them, the best way to tell you all the inspirations I have come to know would be in 6 different blogs, highlighting each one.

I will start with Holiness.

Holiness is Spiritually related to right thoughts or right actions. This is not something that was surprised to learn. It seems so simple and easy, right? Then why is it that many people we would all consider "holy" have fallen from grace? It is because it takes discipline in practice to make Holiness a character trait of our everyday life. There are several different ways of practicing Holiness, including but not limited to, Simplicity vs. Frugality, Submission, Confession, Sacrifice or Fasting.

Fasting is sacrificing food (or something of routine importance) for Spiritual Purposes. If we fast without the spiritual purposes, then we are really just dieting. In the Bible we find many records of fasting for different spiritual purposes. We learned of 9 biblical fast from the bible.

Now let me interrupt right here. I am not one to fast on a regular basis, in fact I am not sure that I have ever fasted food. Another practice of Holiness is Confession and this may be a time for me to do just that. The reason I have never done a food fast is because it can be a dangerous thing for someone that has a history of eating disorder such as I do. When I was in college, I dealt with Anorexia as a result of depression. While I have been healed of the depression, I must always guard against anything that could re trigger the eating disorder itself. Skipping meals, even for spiritual reasons could set a president and "trigger" not eating all over again. So for this reason Fasting food has never been an option for me.

Going into this meeting about fasting, I knew that it was something that I may have to find a creative substitution. There are different ways to fast. There is a normal fast in which you abstain from food but drink water. There is the Liquid fast in which you abstain from food, but drink lots of liquids in addition to water. There is a partial fast in which you make restrictions on certain foods but still partake in others. There is the absolute fast in which you are restricted from food and liquids and there is a Corporate fast in which a group of people fast together. In studying the 9 biblical fast and their purposes, we saw examples of all of these different types of fasting.

I was drawn to the fast we studied about Daniel. Daniel asked the cook to not serve him and his friends the food, but the cook was afraid of loosing his job. In a compromise the cook agreed to give them only vegetables for ten days and then if they were just as healthy as the other men he could continue to only feed them the vegetables. God honored Daniel's fast and he and his friends were healthier than the other men that had been eating the choice foods.

I figured that since this fast is a Partial fast it may be one that I can do. I know that I would not last ten days consecutively, so I will fast one day a week for 10 weeks. I will be adding fruits to my fast as well so that I am not eating broccoli for breakfast in the mornings. While I am fasting I plan to ask God to move in our house and bring about health. Health from common sickness that goes around, but mostly for health on Karston's behalf. Heath and I have prayed for years for a healing for Karston's spina bifida and while he has not experienced a complete healing we have seen answers in the form of medically finding solutions. We have told Karston that his experiences with Spina Bifida will be his testimony to how God can still use him. So while I pray for Karston's healing again, I will be asking God to prevent Karston from the effects of self-catheterizing(he has had two infections in the last 3-4 months), and to keep him healthy emotionally and mentally.

So in order to practice Holiness I will be doing some prayer and fasting in the next 10 weeks.

Keep checking back for the next part of Jesus' character: Contemplative.