“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this is your true and proper worship.” Romans 12:1
“And he shall offer thereof his offering, even an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away. And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD’S.” Leviticus 3:14-15
Fasting in the new covenant is weirdly like the burnt offerings God required in the sacrifice based worship of the old covenant. Leviticus 3 above illustrates a profound shadow of the substance we now have in Christ.
When we fast to the Lord, we literally burn body fat. Visceral body fat is the stored excess energy of the body … when we fast, it becomes the fuel of our fasting. We are the temple now, and upon the altar of our life, we burn as living sacrifices. Fat burns well. The fire in our belly burns the fat during fasting.
“Your body’s fat-burning ability peaks after you’ve been fasting for 12 to 14 hours,” the lead author of the study explains. That’s because, for the first 12 hours of fasting, your body burns glycogen (a molecule that stores sugar). After 12 hours, it starts to burn fat stores.”
https://www.newser.com/story/238151/want-to-burn-more-fat-restrict-eating-to-a-6-hour-period.html?utm_source=iheart&utm_medium=referral
In fasts, our physical excess becomes the fuel of our spiritual devotion. Fasting focuses the heart and mind on Christ in a very effective way. The physical and the spiritual work together, so to speak. The death of the natural gives birth to the spiritual. The fasting ‘death’ (the literal burning of natural fat) feeds the fire of the ‘life’ we have blazing in the Spirit.
I hope you never see fasting the same way again. May we become living sacrifices, with fires burning in our bellies to create a sweet-smelling spiritual sacrifice to the Lord! Less is more!