What's your plan as we go into the holidays for how you're going to share the

gospel with your family members or friends who don't know Jesus? I wrote a short

resource called Gospel Threads to help you intentionally share Christ in the

fabric of your normal conversations around the table or the living room or wherever you are,

and we want to send you a free copy of gospel threads to your front door.

Just go to radical.net slash share Jesus.

Pray the word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Matthew chapter 6 verses 16 through 18.

And when you fast, Jesus says, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure

their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.

Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.

But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your

fasting may not be seen by others but by your father who is in secret, and your

father who sees in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you.

This is one of the places we see Jesus teaching about fasting. What's interesting is the way he uses the word when.

V verse 16 when you fast.

verse 17 when you fast. verse 17, when you fast.

It's not like if you fast, but when you fast.

Like he expects his followers to fast. It's like a given that they will fast in the same

way that the same language is used earlier in Matthew 6 when Jesus says

when you give to the needy and when you pray and

then he says when you fast so fasting is as basic to the Christian life as giving to people who are in need and as praying to God

...