By Jason Charles on 2/1/2016 (8 years 308 days ago) Health
One of the most powerful spiritual disciplines given to us in the Bible is fasting. The Bible is replete with examples of people fasting for a wide variety of reasons. In Acts 13:3 we see believers fasting and praying for safe travels and the strengthening of God's people. In Judges 20:26 we see God's people fasting and seeking God's guidance. In 2 Samuel 1:11-12 we see David fasting in grief over the death of the King and best friend Jonathan. In Matthew 4:1 we are shown how Jesus himself fasted to overcome the temptations of Satan in the wilderness. There are many spiritual reasons to fast, but what is very interesting is how many times, kings declared days or weeks of fasting for the people. Often times these fasts were forced upon the people regularly in a show of repentance and reconciliation towards God. A few examples would include Jehoshaphat declaring a fast throughout all of Judah in 2 Chronicles 20:3, the calling of an assembly to fast in Joel 1:13, or how the King of Nineveh declared a period of fasting towards repentance so they might spare themselves from God's judgment.
Fasting for the ancient Hebrew culture had become synonymous with restoration and reconciliation towards right living and healing in terms of both the spiritual as well as the physical. The question we must ask is how that happened? Why would denying oneself the basic elements of life become a prerequisite towards spiritual and physical healing. The answer is because God, being the Creator of all things knows the effects prayer and fasting have on our bodies. He also instructed His prophets and His anointed to practice this art until it became firmly embedded into the psyche of the Israelites. Fasting and prayer equals regeneration, restoration, and renewal.
This fact has long been overlooked by the medical establishment. Common wisdom would say the more food we eat, the more nutrients, vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc will be available to our system to aid in healing. Yet this has proven to be a false supposition, and modern science is just now beginning to understand how fasting from food, and pursuing low energy meditative states actually gives your body opportunity to regenerate new tissues and cells and recycle old ones. In 2014 a study suggested that fasting actually promotes stem cell regeneration,
“We could not predict that prolonged fasting would have such a remarkable effect in promoting stem cell-based regeneration of the hematopoietic system,” said corresponding author Valter Longo, Edna M. Jones Professor of Gerontology and the Biological Sciences at the USC Davis School of Gerontology and director of the USC Longevity Institute. Longo has a joint appointment at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
“When you starve, the system tries to save energy, and one of the things it can do to save energy is to recycle a lot of the immune cells that are not needed, especially those that may be damaged,” Longo said. “What we started noticing in both our human work and animal work is that the white blood cell count goes down with prolonged fasting. Then when you re-feed, the blood cells come back. So we started thinking, well, where does it come from?” (USC.edu)
These fasting cycles actually kill damaged cells, heal autoimmune diseases, and prevent the ravages aging has on the body. Food takes tremendous energy to digest and to break apart, and our modern eat until you're full mentality is hugely taxing on the body. In a Ted talk Dr. Mattson the current Chief of the Laboratory of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging pointed this out when stating why the medical mafia refuses to recognize the benefits fasting has on human health. He is quoted as saying,
“Why is it that the normal diet is three meals a day plus snacks? It isn’t that it’s the healthiest eating pattern, now that’s my opinion but I think there is a lot of evidence to support that. There are a lot of pressures to have that eating pattern, there’s a lot of money involved. The food industry — are they going to make money from skipping breakfast like I did today? No, they’re going to lose money. If people fast, the food industry loses money. What about the pharmaceutical industries? What if people do some intermittent fasting, exercise periodically and are very healthy, is the pharmaceutical industry going to make any money on healthy people?”
Watch Dr. Mateson's TED speech Video Here
It also has been shown that fasting can even promote fertility, how you ask? Simply by removing toxins that accumulate in our systems. This removing of toxins is vital to a healthy body and brain function. Especially when considering how nasty chemicals, pesticides, GMO's, hormones and preservatives have been shown to accumulate in our bodies towards serious health consequences,
"So how can fasting contribute in a woman's fertility?
According to Natural Instinct Healing, a thorough cleansing heals and regenerates the body on a cellular level. Fasting efficiently allows toxins to be removed from the cells and rebalanced the hormones. It also aids the liver in metabolizing excess hormones around the body like xenoestrogens found in chemicals, plastics and pesticides that creates an imbalance in the natural estrogen level.
Fasting also decreases inflammation, regenerates every organ, balances blood sugar, boosts the immune system, helps nervous system rests and balances reproductive system as well. Over all it gets your body cleanse, detoxed, healthy and ready for fertility.
For couples who have been trying to conceive through in vitro fertilization (IVF) without success or have been in various forms of synthetic contraception, fasting might help. Fasting pulls out excess or synthetic hormones, cleanses the liver, alkalizes the blood stream and reboots the natural hormonal process of the body." (Latinos Health)
Fasting was prescribed in the Bible as a means to rid ourselves of attachments to this world and re-align ourselves with God's will. This concept of periodically fasting and praying is sorely missing in our modern age, yet once again medicine is showing that Biblical wisdom always prevails. Anyone who endeavors to restore their system through fasting and prayer almost always speaks of the profound spiritual acuity that is obtained during this time. King David, Daniel the Prophet, the Apostle Paul and even Jesus Himself prescribed fasting as a means of centering ourselves with the divine nature and will of God. So in this light anyone who endeavors to fast will be in the best of company, the best of spirits and also the best of health, everything we could want and need in our modern era. Maybe it is time like the kings of ancient Israel to call a national day of fasting, prayer and repentance. It certainly would do us all a lot of good, heck it could even spare your life and our nation.
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