Hunger and Thirst

It is a sure mark of grace to desire more (Robert Murray M’Cheyne)

Good appetite, good food and good health go hand in hand. The only time the natural desire to eat diminishes is when we are full, sick, hurt or stressed. And so it is with our spiritual hunger and thirst; it is always working unless we suppress that desire with attention to other things, wrongdoing, rebellion or some inordinate passion. Life has become so compacted with things to occupy us in so many ways that we must make God our first priority if we are to survive spiritually (Mitch Horton). Spend time reading and studying God’s Word the Bible, pray in the Spirit always and on every occasion. And remember the Lord takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the humble with salvation.

What is the greatest gift that God has given to humanity? Most believe it is the

forgiveness of wrongdoing, but there is something that precedes divine pardon. We must come to the place where our desire for the Lord causes us to need and want Him. “No one can come to Me,” Jesus said in John 6:44, “unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” God described Himself in the Bible as the author of salvation. He is the author of redemption, meaning that He has written Himself into our lives and written us into His life. He wrote the script, placing in humanity a desire for spiritual reality and truth, an inner longing which hungers and thirsts for relationship with Him. There is a part of us that needs and wants God. When we feed our spiritual desire it will grow and if we starve it—it will die. Brother Lawrence, the fifteenth Century follower of Christ got it right when he said, “Our only business is to love and delight ourselves in God.”

You satisfy your longing for God by satisfying His longing for you. Seek Him and search for Him as a prospector digging gold out of a mine. Give it your all. None of us ever desired anything more ardently than God desires to bring people to a knowledge of Himself (John Tauler).