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Insight's to the Word with Pastor Teague!
Day three of our fasting experience has brought some good questions from our participants. One question was in relationship to the Daniel Fast. This seems the most popular fast available to us because it offers a safe fast while at the same time leading us to sacrifice at the table.
Let me start by bullet pointing some issues that you want to pay attention to.
Someone texted me today and asked about eating rice while practicing the Daniel Fast. I don’t see where this would be a problem. The Daniel Fast is exemption from meat. Some people include fish and poultry in this list of meats to deny and others just include red meat. It is up to the one doing the fasting. The Daniel Fast exempts you from meat – according to scripture and only allows for vegetables and fruit. What you consider “meat” can be subjective as far as fish and poultry are concerned but red meat is not allowed at all.
I practice the Daniel Fast. I have a daily helping of salad or a bowl of boiled vegetables (brocoli, cauliflower, etc.). I may include fruits throughout the week but I will exempt myself from meats completely. I will have soup and sometimes this may include a minimum amount of meat in the soup (chicken noodle for instance). The idea is not to get legalistic about the fast but sacrificial and to deny self pleasures found in any of the foods we eat during a fast. Elmer Towns and Jentezen Franklin have books that detail fasting options to a greater detail. Elmer Towns suggests that you drink a V-8 at the end of the day to keep your metabolism balanced. Again, the idea is sacrifice – not becoming so legalistic that pride enters the picture. Fasting creates in us a spirit of humility – not arrogance over what we are fasting that others are not.
The idea is to replace the time at the table with time in the Word, meditation and prayer. It is good to have a motivating force behind your fasting effort. Our congregational and personal motive is intimacy with God. Finding time for the Word and prayer is vitally important for this five-week fast.
Here are some ideas: in the market place you may want to exempt yourself from the lunch room and find a quiet office to read scriptures and meditate or even pray. Construction workers or those individuals who do not have the convenience of an office building may have to be creative with finding space and time to draw more intimate in your devotional time. Instead of eating a meal at home try sitting with family members and sharing with your spouse and or your children the motive for your fast. Slip away in the evening and make time for prayer, mediation and devotional scripture reading instead of watching television, sports, sitcoms, movies or the news. The idea here is to make time where you have not previously made time for Him.
You can respond to this blog and I encourage you to do so. Write me and let me know some of the ways you have practiced fasting in the past. I am confident our readers would like to here some fresh ideas as to how you approach becoming more intimate with the Lord.
Please visit these websites for some great information and ordering resources for reading about fasting: www.elmertowns.com and www.jentezenfranklin.org/fasting/. Also the January issue of the Church of God Evangel (available at our media desk for free) has a great article on fasting. I encourage you to do get information from these two websites and or books from these two trusted sites for your reading and devotional purposes.
Pastortimteague's Blog 
My family has been attending Victory Hill for about a month. I will not go into all the positive things we’ve seen and like so far in this e-mail. I will, however, say that I am thankful for this time of fasting. I am thankful that you have and are encouraging your congregation to participate. Our family is doing it together. My children (9 and 11) are doing the Daniel fast (which in our case, I must add, not only includes denying self meat but also “delicacies” aka sugar). My husband and I have started out with the complete fast. After just a couple of days, I find that I am already drawing closer to my Lord. Something as simple as when I feel hungry, I pray. I thank Him, I ask for strength, I ask for extra angels of protection from the enemy. My heart’s desire is to go deeper. I’ve been in a slump. I’m thankful for Victory Hill. I’m thankful for challenges such as this that truly take scripture and challenge us to the core to go deeper.