Transcription
We are the ones who determine our level of hunger for God, not God. Hey everybody, welcome to Drawing Near. And this is lesson two. The title of this lesson is "Protect Your Hunger."
You know, I was having a conversation with a believer one day, and he made this statement to me. He said, "You know, the more I have walked with God, the more I realize that it takes God drawing us for us to have intimacy with Him." And I said, "I'm sorry, that's just not an accurate statement." And I, I went on to ask him, "Where do you get that from?" And he said, "Well, Jesus said, 'No man can come to me except the Father draw him.'" I said, "That's talking about an unbeliever. Once we are now in the family of God, even as my children can approach me anytime they want."
Now, I'm talking about my family. I have four sons, Lisa and I have four sons. They can approach me anytime they want. I get calls from them all the time. I get texts from them all the time. I can approach them whenever I want. This is a relationship. God gave us marriage and family to show us His desire. Jesus is the groom, we are the bride. God is the father, we are the family of God. So much can be learned when we view how family dynamics work in light of the family of God. So do not ever believe that it takes God like knocking you over the head or getting a bush to burn, like we talked about in the last chapter, for you to be able to approach Him. This invitation is open to us constantly. We can constantly draw near to Him. He's always ready. The question is, are we ready to engage with intimacy with Him?
So the baffling question is still this: Why do so many believers have such a shallow relationship with God? Why are they satisfied without being in His presence? The answer is not complex. It's all about our hunger and our thirst to know Him. David, King David, makes the statement, Psalm 42, verses 2 through 4: "My soul thirsts for God, for the Living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, 'Where is your God?'"
Okay, this is a verse that you should think about and think about, meditate, ponder on. Listen to the hunger in David. Listen to his thirst. He said, "My soul thirsts for God. I am hungry for Him." But then he makes this statement: "He said, 'When I remember these things, that's when I pour out my soul to You.'" Okay, now that Hebrew word for "remember" is the Hebrew word *zakar*. And W.E. Vines tells us that it's no different than its English counterpart. It not only means to recall something. Okay, what do I mean by that? "Oh, I remember I was supposed to do that." In other words, I forgot. Now I just remembered. That's one aspect of the definition. But the main definition of this word is to retain in thought constantly. So what David is actually saying is, "When I retain desire for God in my thoughts, it causes me to pour out my soul."
You know, I had a minister that's been in ministry for 30 years. He's a dear friend. He said, "John, I just got to be open and transparent. I really want to have a deeper relationship with God." This guy is so powerful. He has seen over a half a million high school students come to Jesus, almost a hundred thousand high school students not commit suicide. And yet, 30 years into his ministry, he made that statement, which tells me that just being in ministry doesn't mean we're having intimate relationship. Just being a king didn't give an intimate relationship with God. David was hungry. He was king of Israel, but he was hungry for a relationship with God.
So here is a statement I want you to write this down in your iPhones and your iPads, on your notebook, in your book, wherever. But put this statement down, and I want you to think about it: We are the ones who determine our level of hunger for God, not God.
Okay, um, many people pray this: "Lord, increase my hunger for You." You can pray, but pray that you're blue in the face, that prayer will not be answered because it is unscriptural. God is not the one who's responsible for your hunger for Him. You are. I cannot stress that enough. Proverbs. Oh, and let me, let me just say this before I read Proverbs: The only way we can create and maintain hunger for God is to protect our souls by choosing what we fill it with.
Okay, now listen to the scripture, Proverbs 27, verse 7: "A satisfied soul" – not a satisfied stomach, listen carefully – "A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb, but to the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet." So when a soul is satisfied, it will actually loathe. Now, that word "loathe," it means I don't want anything to do with it. It actually means the Hebrew word means to trample down. Now, I'm going to give you an example that will illustrate this.
And in the United States, we have a big holiday called Thanksgiving. I want you to think about Thanksgiving Day. Now, typically, a lot of Americans don't eat any breakfast. Why? Because we have that Thanksgiving meal around two o'clock in the afternoon. We want to be so hungry that we feel like we can eat a cow. So what happens? We go to our parents' house, and the mom has cooked a feast. The turkey comes out, the stuffing, the salad, the sweet potatoes, the potatoes, I mean, all the, the charcuterie trays, everything. And we feast for an hour, right? But then three hours later, we now go to our spouse's family's home, and that mother makes the exact same meal. And when she brings it out, we go, "Oh, we are so full." We actually now despise what we couldn't wait to eat three hours earlier. This is exactly what the Proverbs is talking about when it says, "The soul that is full will loathe the honeycomb."
What is the honeycomb? The honeycomb, the Hebrews would give their children honey every time they spoke a scripture to them because they wanted them to understand the sweetness of God's word. So in Hebrew, it uses this word "honeycomb." I can read it like this: A satisfied soul will actually loathe it. Won't want anything to do with the word of God. Man, that is tragic when you think about it.
Okay, there is a church in the Book of Revelations. It's actually the seventh church that Jesus sends a letter to. Now, I want to make a statement here. There's seven of these historic churches that Jesus has a letter to in the Book of Revelations, right? You've got Ephesus, you've got Thyatira, Pergamos, you've got Philadelphia, you've got Laodicea, you've got all these seven churches, all right? Now, if these messages that Jesus spoke to these churches were just intended for those churches, then God never would have put them in scripture. The very fact that God put them in scripture means they have prophetic application. In other words, they apply to us today.
Well, the one I really want to focus on is the seventh church, which was Laodicea. Now, Jesus says to this church, "Thus says the Faithful and True Witness." Faithful means I'm going to tell you the truth every time. True means I'm going to tell you the truth whether you like it or not because I love you. He said, "I know that you are not hot and I know that you are not cold." And He said, "I would rather you be hot or cold." Can you imagine that? Jesus is saying to a church, "I'd rather you be hot or cold." Cold is the person that has no relationship with God. I mean, this to me is mind-blowing. In other words, their lukewarm state was worse than being cold. He was saying, "You're in a worse state than somebody that doesn't even have a relationship with me, somebody that's cold." I mean, wow.
And He said, "Because you are lukewarm, He said, 'I'm going to vomit you out of My mouth.'" You cannot vomit out of your mouth what is not in your body. This is a church Jesus calls it a church, yet they are so indifferent, they are so lukewarm, that He said, "I'm about to, if you don't change, vomit you out of My mouth." Whoa, that really gets my attention. And that church, many Bible scholars believe, represents the church of the last days.
Now, what does it mean? We've got an indifferent church. It's called Laodicea. And what causes this indifference? Here's the, here's what causes the indifference: Jesus said, "Because you say, 'I am rich, I have become wealthy, and I have need of nothing.'" Okay, so what set them up is that they called themselves rich, they called themselves needing nothing. Their souls were full. So that's why they were indifferent.
Now, a shallow assessment of this church would be, "Okay, they were indifferent because they had a lot of money." Because Laodicea historically was a very wealthy city. And so a very shallow assessment, and it's not even an accurate assessment, would be, "They had too much money." Okay, come on, really?
King David, let's talk about King David. Do you know what King David had? So much money, he turned over to Solomon four, this is his son, four thousand tons of pure gold, four thousand tons of silver, and so much iron and bronze that it couldn't be weighed. This guy had money. But yet, he's the guy that goes, "I pour out my soul, my soul thirsts for You, I long for You, I hunger for You." So it wasn't money that caused David to not have passion. Because he had great passion. So much passion for God that he transcended from being just a king to a prophet and a king. God saw his hunger was that great that God said, "I'm going to not only make you a king, I'm going to give you the added anointing of being a prophet." That's amazing. He's the only king that ever entered into that realm. He's kind of like Enoch. He was so hungry to be intimate with God, God just said, "I can't stand this anymore. I'm taking you."
Yeah, I, I just don't understand why we sometimes think that God is so much different in the sense of, we're made in His image. Don't you have certain people that you want to be close to more than other people? Why is it? It's because they like being around you. I don't want to be around people that don't want anything to do with me. I don't want to be around people that ignore me. But I do want to be around people who want to be around me. Well, this is David. David's hungry for God, and God says, "Okay, David, I'm going to reveal an aspect of My person, of Myself, to you that none of the other kings will ever have, and that's you're going to get to be a prophet." I mean, to me, that's mind-blowing.
Okay, listen to how David describes himself. He says, "Bow down Your ear, O Lord, hear me, for I am poor and needy." Now, isn't this interesting? David calls himself poor and needy, yet he gives his son four thousand tons of gold. Laodicea says, "I am rich," but yet Jesus says, "You are poor and naked and miserable." So this has nothing to do with how much money or possessions you have. It has everything to do with what you give your soul to.
So if you give your soul to 40 hours a week of social media, guess what? You're not, you're not. And you're going to be sitting there looking at me right now on this cam, on the on the screen, going, "I can't relate to what he's saying." Well, you can't relate because you've given your appetite to what doesn't satisfy. The things of this world will never ever satisfy. If, if you look at David, he also said, "My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, 'Where is your God?'" He is searching. He's seeking because he loves God that much.
You know, I remember years ago, I was asked to speak to the Cree Indians up in Northern Canada. It was crazy. I had to fly to Montreal, then I had to fly another hour and a half, hour and a half straight north, then I had to drive another two hours straight north. And I finally got way up in the top of Canada, and there was this massive reservation for the Cree Indians. And I'll never forget this. It was a camp, it was their summer camp meeting. It was in July. And I mean, these people, there was 1500 of them under the tent. They were rushing for the front row seats. And, and, and, and, and they were just so hungry for God, right? But I'm preaching. What I couldn't help notice is all the 17 and 18 and 19-year-olds were standing at the very back of the tent, and they were just indifferent, and they were just looking around, they were giggling and laughing.
Finally, one day, I was preaching during the, because it was a week-long camp meeting, and I ran to the back of the tent and I started confronting those 17 and 18-year-olds. "Why, why aren't you engaging?" And all of a sudden, my eyes were opened, and I saw one had a Los Angeles Laker shirt on, another one had a Dallas Cowboy hat, another one had a Green Bay Packer. And all of a sudden, I realized, here are these poor Cree Indians, but they had just recently gotten televisions into their house. And now they were filling their souls. These 17 and 18-year-olds were filling their souls with that which didn't satisfy.
Now, this is what was amazing. I got on a plane, flew back to the United States, and went to the Northwest section of the United States, Seattle. I went to a youth conference. And in all my 35 years of traveling and speaking all over the world, I have seen very few times where I've seen greater hunger than what I saw in those young people in that youth conference. And I remember after the first night service, I found myself surrounded by six deep of of 17, 18-year-olds all around me, and they're asking me questions. And all of a sudden, I look at my watch, and it's almost midnight. I said, "Oh my gosh, we've been standing here for hours talking." And they said, "Please, please, can we take you to lunch? We want to know more about God." I said, "Absolutely." So they rented out an entire restaurant the next day. And when I pulled up to the restaurant, I noticed all the cars were BMWs, Mercedes. They were all the finest, most expensive cars. These kids were really wealthy kids, and yet they had so much more hunger than the poor Cree Indian kids who just had a television and just had a Laker shirt. So in other words, it's what we give our soul to.
You know, Revelation chapter 3, verse 20. Jesus makes the statement to this church that's indifferent: "Here I am, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with Me." Notice He said, "If anyone hears." What keeps us from hearing His calling voice? It's when we drown our soul. We fill our soul with all the things of this world. They may not be sinful things. They're just things that consume our soul so that we have no left for hunger for Him.
When I eat that Thanksgiving meal, it's not a bad meal. It's not a sinful meal. I'm going to speak figuratively here. It's not a sinful meal. And when I'm hungry for it, I eat it. I consume it. Then when I go three hours later to my in-laws' house, and they put that same food out, I don't want anything to do with it because why? I'm already full. When your soul is full, even not with just evil things, just full, you're not going to retain your hunger for God.
You know, God sent Moses to the backside of the desert for one reason. He was there for 40 years because why? He's the Prince of Egypt. As the Prince of Egypt, he got anything he wanted. And God said, "I'm going to create a hunger in him." And so that hunger was so strong that when God appeared at that bush, Moses said, "I'm turning aside." There wasn't any hesitation. His soul was hungry. He wanted to know the Creator.
Okay, write this statement down: Hunger is the determining factor of whether or not we will pursue intimacy with God. And I'm going to say it again: We're in control of our appetite, not God. The question is, what appetites and cravings are we going to develop?
All right, here's the statement I want you to write down: You will hunger for what you feed on. I'm going to say it again: You're going to hunger for what you feed on.
Let me give you a natural example. When I was in college, I was the biggest junk food junkie on the planet. I loved Twinkies, Ho Hos, Ding Dongs. I would eat Big Macs and Coke and Fries. That was my favorite meal. One day, I'm looking for some junk food, and I'm about 22 years old, and the Holy Spirit said, "Your body is My temple. Take care of it." And all of a sudden, the thought came to me: "Wow, if I had a Ferrari, would I put dirty gas and recycled oil in it? Would it still run? Yes. Would I shorten its life? Yes. I can get another Ferrari. I can't get another one of these." And then all of a sudden, the statement, "My body." Then I started thinking, "What if that Ferrari was somebody I knew, a friend's Ferrari, and I'm putting dirty gas and recycled oil in his Ferrari, and I'm shortening the life of his car? I'm going to answer to him why I shortened the life of his car." God showed me that day, "You're going to answer to Me one day for shortening the life of your body if you don't change your eating habits." And I went, "Whoa."
So all of a sudden, now I started reading and researching, "How do you eat healthy?" I didn't know a thing about it. So I started realizing eating fish, fresh caught fish, and salads, and whole grain breads. And I, I started eating healthy. And, and at first, let me tell you something, first couple years, if you want to put a Big Mac, fries, and Coke, and you would put a piece of fish and salad, I would have said, "Give me the Big Mac, fries, broken fries." But that word from God, it caused me to go ahead and choose the fish and the salad. But there was a benefit that I didn't realize was going to happen. And what happened was, my taste began to change. After a couple years of eating healthy, I didn't crave donuts anymore. I didn't crave cake anymore. I've had people sit at tables with me, and they go, "You really want this cake I'm eating right now?" And I go, "Actually, I have absolutely no desire for it." I literally changed my appetite by what I fed on.
Well, if you're feeding constantly social media, ESPN, you're constantly feeding on, on just the news of the day, mainstream media, all the gossip of the day, guess what? Somebody's going to put a Bible in front of you, and you're going to go, "Uh, uh, yeah, I'll read it. I'm a Christian, I guess I should read my chapter today." I mean, what would happen if you spent more time in scripture than you do on social media? Do you know the average youth in America between 15 and 25 years old spends 50 hours a week? What would happen if they spent half that time in the word of God? We would have a generation that's hungry and thirsty for God, just like David.
Now, don't take this to an unhealthy extreme. I remember one time, I, I was still a single man, and uh, I, I was, my time was consumed with Bible school and studying the word of God. And my roommate, it was Sunday afternoon, said, "Hey, a bunch of us are getting together. We're going to play some touch football. Do you want to come?" And I said, "No, I'm going to get in the word this afternoon." So I remember he left the apartment. I opened up my Bible and I started reading. It was so dry, I could strike a match on it. And I bowed my head. I said, "God, what have I done? What have I done?" And God spoke to me, and He said, "Go play touch football." And I went, "What?" "Go play touch football." The Lord said, "Yes." So I go out and play touch football for an hour and a half. I come back, open up my Bible, and all of heaven opened up. And I went, "Whoa, what just happened?" And the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, "Of the making of many books, there is no end, and much study is weariness of the flesh." That's Ecclesiastes chapter 12. He said, "Son, your brain is part of your flesh. It needs rest."
If you will remember, there were times that My disciples were so busy ministering that they didn't have time to eat, and I pulled them aside and I said, "Come apart and rest." And give rest. See, recreation means recreation. So don't, don't go to the unhealthy extreme like I did. Learn the right balance. But make sure you're feeding yourself with the word of God.
I want to make this statement. Listen to me carefully: Your hunger is your spiritual thermometer. Okay, write that down. Your hunger is your spiritual thermometer. What do I mean by thermometer? When, when somebody's sick, they got the flu, they put a thermometer underneath their tongue. That thermometer says, "You got 101 fever." Right? And you know what else they say? They say, "He lost his appetite." This is what happens to us spiritually.
All right, now here's the deal. If we live our lives and we go on one meal a week, guess what? Most of the week, our body is going to be screaming, "I'm hungry." Here's what's scary. The less we eat of the word of God, the less we partake of the word of God, the quieter our spirits become. So it's just the opposite. When we don't eat, our physical bodies scream at us, "I'm hungry." When we don't eat spiritually, our spirits get quieter. And now it takes a little bit more consistency to regain that appetite. Let me tell you something: Protect your appetite. Protect it because it's going to determine whether you hunger and thirst for God or whether you just walk through this life unsatisfied by what you're filling your soul with. We saw how we determine our level of hunger for God, not God.
So what we're going to do in the next lesson is we're going to talk about how to develop a passion for the presence of God. You don't want to miss it. Thank you.
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