It is a sobering fact to realize that Jesus began His remarks about fasting with a word about one's motive. It is easy to take something that is good and try to use it to win the approval of others, or seek to somehow twist the arm of God into doing what we want. There are several purposes of fasting I want to mention this morning. The first purpose is that of self-discipline . It is easy for us to become self-indulgent, especially in our society.
Hunger is one of our basic appetites, and greed resulting in gluttony is one of our basic sins.
Self-control, which is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, is meaningless unless it includes the control of our bodies as well. Ben Patterson writes about fasting, and he says that all of us focus too much on food these days. Eat, eat, eat. We must eat. Paul used the picture of an athlete many times in his epistles as an example of the Christian life.