What are you hungry for?

INTRO: (Don’t start thinking of Taco Bell!) I’m an expert on food – (area I really excel in) – when I’m hungry for a certain kind of food, there is nothing like going to your favorite restaurant and filling up on it (Pasta). There is a difference between that kind of hunger, and the hunger of someone in a Third World country who eats once or twice a week a meal of rice and maybe bread. There is a difference still between them and someone who is hungry for God. We’re going
to look at hunger in light of the Word of God. (PRAY)

John 6:22 – 40 Jesus did not rebuke them for their hunger, but for their wrong motives. Instead of hungering after HIM and being filled, they wanted to be filled first. When we put GOD first, all things will be added unto us. They were motivated by selfishness.

You don’t “get hungry” for God…a man knows when he is hungry, he is empty inside…don’t eat for a while, you’ll know it!

If you aren’t spiritually hungry, you are filling up with something (worldliness, cares of the world, material things).

EX: I used to say world only fills temporarily, God fills an empty heart…I had to repent! (He does, but we have to be continually filling up! We can get empty spiritually, run out of “energy”, needing to be refueled). The lost are even hungry, they are just on the wrong diet.

(It’s probably worse hunger with God! He wants us to continually seek after Him…you can’t live off of yesterday’s manna!)

For some of us it’s time for a change of DIET! Stop feeding on worldly things and start feeding on the Word of God!

Amazing how many messages have been on denying self, sacrifice, hunger…God wants us to get it!

(EX: Kids in the Park)

Deuteronomy 8:1-3 Wilderness experiences – God allows us to hunger to humble us (allows us to cry out).

Nehemiah 9:15 You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger, And brought them water out of the rock for their thirst, And told them to go in to possess the land Which You had sworn to give them.


MANNA IS FOR THE WILDERNESS EXPERIENCES – THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY IS REVIVAL!
Hunger caused the children of Israel to CRY OUT.

God will temporarily fill your hunger, but it’s not His best…it has to be sought out…you could stay in the wilderness! You can get comfortable in the desert (or want to go back to Egypt!)
EX: God moves a little, someone gets saved once a week…healed once a year etc.)

{Someone says…”well, I have all this stuff going on in my life, Suzie said something mean, my bills aren’t paid, Pastor is mad at me…”}
Proverbs 27:7 (NIV) He who is full loathes honey, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.

_______________

Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.

Why righteousness? It’s not about being perfect – God knew through Jesus He was purchasing damaged goods – IT’S ABOUT BEING WITH HIM AND ALLOWING HIS PERFECTION TO WORK THROUGH US!
Hunger is born out of knowing we can’t do it – but HE can!

{There is nothing noble about being hungry – it shows a condition of emptiness (people walk around saying how hungry they are – really they’re telling you how empty they are!)
Hungry is NOT God’s BEST – it is a condition that brings us INTO God’s BEST…the blessing is being FILLED, not being HUNGRY.}

Let’s break down Matthew 5:6:

Blessed = supremely blessed, fortunate, well off.

Hunger = famished, starving, to crave

Thirst = thirst
righteousness = equity (in character or act); justification

Filled = to gorge

So Jesus is saying:

Supremely blessed, happy, fortunate and well off are those who are famished, craving, starving and thirsty for *equity in character or act to God for they will be gorged.

*(Equity being not equal with God, but equal in character and His acts – righteousness is right standing with God)

QUESTION: Why isn’t revival a continuous force, why are there dry times?

{Ron McIntosh – Quest for Revival} The missing ingredient is, I believe, MOMENTUM.

Momentum = “A property of a moving body that determines the length of time to bring it to rest when under the action of a constant force.”

OR – The impact of a continued force of an entity, as the church, is in direct correlation to the action against it.

OR – The devil is unconcerned about individual victories against his actions as long as they do not become continuous.

{Mario Murillo: Satan does not fear revival nearly as much as he fears our discovery of the fact that revival can be permanent.

Satan brings discouragement and defeat to halt momentum. If he can preoccupy the church with momentary defeat, hurdles or problems, he can reduce God’s move to sporadic victories interspersed with devastating defeats.

We should NEVER be discouraged by temporary setbacks! Draw close to God, reload and continue forward in greater momentum.
Momentum takes the church from DEFEATING the devil’s works to DESTROYING the devil’s works!

So if MOMENTUM is the missing ingredient, what is the key to momentum?

HUNGER. Hunger is not a mental craving to see the spectacular, which is a “soulish” desire. True hunger is an APPETITE FOR GOD that becomes a driving force. It is a divine yearning for what is missing in life. It becomes a driving force to see anything that is not like God touched by His hand and transformed.

We read about all of the great revivalists, and the great works they did and long for those days – yet we forget that they were divinely starved for the lost to be saved, the sick to be healed, and oppressed to be set free. They felt a burden that only a manifestation of the heart of God could relieve.

Spiritual Hunger makes three important contributions:

1. It produces a desire to see a hurting humanity helped

2. It motivates a person towards God and all that is right.

3. It promotes the recognition that a signal is being given by the Holy Spirit for a new season of God to begin. It causes us to long for the things of God that are not present in our lives to fulfill that hunger.

The word “hunger” in the Greek is written in what is called a “present durative tense”. The hungering continues even after it is filled. When we experience this kind of hunger, we can be fulfilled but never permanently satisfied. Once we see the operation of God’s power in action, we become hungry for more. Once we see the oppressed set free, we want to see more…(lost saved, sick healed…)

How can this hunger be cultivated? (Four Keys)

1.   Fasting.
Fasting is God’s way of using physical hunger to remind us of our need to remain spiritually hungry for more of Him. It is God’s way of drawing people to hunger after Him. (Remember that fasting doesn’t change God, it changes us!)

2.   Feasting. (NOT a contradiction, but a COMPLIMENT).
“You are what you eat” applies to the spiritual realm too!

John 6:32-35 How can Jesus tell us in John 5:6 to hunger & thirst then tell us we will never hunger & thirst?
Feasting on Jesus causes us to never hunger & thirst again…it wipes out any hunger pangs for worldliness…the only hunger that can remain is the hunger for righteousness.

3.   Becoming a desperate person.
Hungry people do desperate things. We must be a people desperate for the things of God. {If you want to see something you’ve never seen before, you must do something you’ve never done before.} We can’t remain the status quo! Hunger for God can’t be “business as usual”, but demands we take new risks for Him. True hunger will not be denied ‘til it is filled!

4.   Being where the hurting are.
Nothing will create hunger in a person more than seeing the need of a hurting society. Every time we look at an altar full of people, we should be filled with compassion to see God move on their behalf!

THE QUESTION IS:

What are you hungry for – the move of God or the God of the move? I can’t make you hungry – if there is emptiness inside of you, you know it. (Talking to the Jesus loving, spirit filled believers).

*Read scriptures – close w/ Revelation 22:17