A man shares his days with hunger, thirst and cold, with the good times and the bad, and the first part of being a man is to understand that.”
–Louis L’Amour (Galloway)
“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.”
–Psalm 42:1 (NIV)
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“God blesses those people who want to obey him more than to eat or drink. They will be given what they want!” –Matthew 5:6 (CEV)
Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Ah, then the question must be, how hungry? how thirsty are you? One more thing that should be brought into consideration is what is it that you are currently eating? We all thirst and hunger for something, but not everything is good for us. Someone wrote, “Your diet is not only what you eat. It is what you watch, what you listen to, what you read, and the people you hang around. Pay attention to what you feed your soul, not just your stomach.” Stuffing your mouth with the wrong stuff will curb your spiritual appetite.
As Christians we should be hungry for the things of God and that includes righteousness. The sinner is destitute of righteousness, but Christ is the perfect righteousness for all His people. Why then do we linger at the table of the devil? Why do we thirst after the forbidden and the things that would hinder our walk and our relationship with God? I am not speaking of “legal righteousness” which is imparted when we are justified. But what about implanted righteousness? We are now alive in Christ and dead men do not hunger. Hunger proceeds from life. Hunger is a sense of lack. When we are born again, we have the spiritual hunger that follows the new birth. Thomas Watson declares, “The appetite is as well from God, as the food.”
We should be hungry for the things of God. Our hunger shows the character of a godly man, so now another question: are you hungering? Watson tells us, “Desire is the best evidence of a Christian.” Let that sink in. If you are not hungry for the things of God, not thirsty for the fountain that flows from the inner spring of the Spirit, then it might be good to check your position. As we eat food daily for nourishment so should hunger daily for spiritual food. Get this, unless we hunger after righteousness we cannot obtain it.
Take a moment to consider the reasons why people do not hunger and thirst after righteousness. One reason might be that they have never felt any emptiness. They are full of self-righteousness like the Pharisees, they have bloated stomachs. Others, in a similar fashion, think they are well enough without it. “I’m saved” they say, and that is enough. They complain about the lack of this or that, the lack of answered prayers, the lack of God meeting their needs, but never about the lack of righteousness. They would rather sleep than eat as Peter states in 2 Peter 2:3. They refuse good food when placed in front of them and would rather run to the calorie counter of useless or false teachings. Some may come for the garnishing, the entertainment, the fellowship and not partake of the food. While others, I would have to call them pseudo-Christians, would rather play in the streets of the world, or they prefer vain things rather than the things of God, and then, you’ve seen them even in church, they prefer their phone to the food offered from the pulpit. There is one more group, those who prefer disputes rather than the practice of piety. They will argue over the leftovers; they would rather pick bones that eat of the heavenly manna presented to them.
Oh that we would have that deep hunger for the things of God. Oh that we could just have one more bite of His presence, His food, His water, His righteousness. We have the opportunity to have our hunger filled. Do not be like those the psalmist mentions, “They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away.” (Psalm 107:5, NIV) What happened, they missed the feast for one reason or another.