Jesus Christ's Personal Intercession
Are You Hungry?
We've all experienced what we call hunger to some degree or the other. Sometimes I'll have only a banana for breakfast, or maybe just a hot cup of tea, and later on, as lunch gets closer, my stomach lets me know it wants some food. I'll be at work, trying to do my job, and my stomach will interrupt whatever thought processes may be going on and say "A nice, thick, juicy steak would be just fine right about now", or "Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!" And no matter how much I try to keep focused on the job at hand, I have no peace until I get some food in my belly.
While we speak of being hungry at times, most of us don't really know what it is to be truely hungry. My mother grew up in post-WWII Germany and knew what that was like. She hasn't been hungry like that since, but the physical consequences have remained. True hunger is found in many third-world countries, as well as in this country. If my stomach gives me grief when I've skipped a breakfast, theirs must really be a torture. To be truely hungry means desperation to satisfy that hunger; your mind can think of nothing else.
I think most of us will agree that hunger and thirst are, generally speaking, bad things. However, there is a hunger and a thirst that is good to have, and even better to have satisfied. There was a time David was in the desert, perhaps hiding from Saul, and he was very thirsty. But his thirst was not just for water. He wrote:
O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You
In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.
So I have looked for You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
Do you feel about God like David felt? Are you desperate for Him? Do you have a gnawing hunger inside to know Him better?
When you're hungry, all you can think about is what will satisfy your hunger and you will do anything to satisfy it. When it comes to spiritual hunger, many times we will fill ourselves with God-substitutes, which appear good and sometimes seem to meet our need, but they're only temporary and are nowhere near as good as the real thing.
One of the substitutes we feed ourselves with, and its so easy to do,
is Christian work. We will do all kinds of things to help build up the
church, but we neglect the most important thing, and that is personal time
spent alone with God. Yes, Christian service and relationships with others
are important and necessary, but our individual relationships with God are
even more important because that is what strengthens us to do our work.
The church tends to operate too much in the Martha mode and not enough in
the Mary mode (
God's blessings can also distract us from Himself. Like the daily manna
that some Israelites hoarded (
The solution is to first become properly hungry and thirsty for God. It is hard to feel hungry when you keep filling yourself with God-substitutes. Examine your daily routine. If you have been spending most or all of your time in God's service, but avoiding the God you serve, you need to reprioritize your relationship with Him. Examine the things you have been filling your life with, and see what needs to be postponed, limited or eliminated in order for you to spend time with your God.
Spend regular quality time with God in His word and prayer. Don't think of it as just some chore or duty. Spend time with God like the best Friend He really is. Treat God like you would a lover: make regular, daily, dates with Him. Get to know, appreciate, and love Him more. Read His word with an awareness of His presence. Ensure nothing gets in the way of this - even your ministry. And as you do so, you will become hungrier and thirstier for Him.
Paul spoke of the excellency of just knowing Jesus Christ
(
Be *desperate* to know God (
Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
For He satisfies the longing soul,
And fills the hungry soul with goodness.