Pastor’s Blog 5.22.19
Matthew 5:6
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled. NKJV
What has happened to spiritual hunger and thirst in the church of America? In the human body, having no appetite is usually a symptom of illness or eating the wrong foods at the wrong time. Junk-food will ruin an appetite for food that has nutrition.
2 Timothy 3: 1-7 TPT
But you need to be aware that in the final days the culture of society will become extremely fierce and difficult for the people of God. People will be self-centered lovers of themselves and obsessed with money. They will boast of great things as they strut around in their arrogant pride and mock all that is right. They will ignore their own families. They will be ungrateful and ungodly.
They will become addicted to hateful and malicious slander. Slaves to their desires, they will be ferocious, belligerent haters of what is good and right. With brutal treachery, they will act without restraint, bigoted and wrapped in clouds of their conceit. They will find their delight in the pleasures of this world more than the pleasures of the loving God.
They may pretend to have a respect for God, but in reality they want nothing to do with God’s power. Stay away from people like these! For they are the ones who worm their way into the hearts of vulnerable women, spending the night with those who are captured by their lusts and steeped in sin. They are always learning but never discover the revelation-knowledge of truth.
I grew up and spent the first 50 years of my life eating what tasted good without much thought about nutrition, or what the food I was eating was doing to the inside of me. The nutritional value of food really had no meaning to me. I was living to eat, but now I am eating to live. Why? Revelation came as I began to experience the symptoms of disease. Living for the pleasures of this world is the same. We like the taste of the world because our flesh and fallen nature is of this world, and we are not looking at the revelation of eternity.
Eternity is more real to me than the present, so my choices are determined by it, not the moment.
Waiting on God and obeying Him when He leads is not as pleasurable to the flesh as the junk-food of the pleasures of sin, just like a healthy meal of vegetables is not as pleasurable as a Big Mac or Whopper! But, how you feel later makes it all worth the discipline.
Waiting on the Lord in prayer, fasting and resisting temptation may not be as exciting as watching your favorite form of entertainment, but it’s what happens later that pays the big dividends! When we wait on the Lord we will experience Him at some point and nothing can top that!
Psalm 62:7-8
7 In God is my salvation and my glory; The rock of my strength, And my refuge, is in God.
8 Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah NKJV
The bottom line is- culture and convenience has given the flesh so much junk-food many have lost their appetite for the manna of heaven. The human palate can be changed in a short time by the discipline of giving it what it needs instead of what it wants. The spiritual palate can be changed as well! I have not drank a soda since 1997. I have taken a sip a couple of times to taste something and it was so repulsive I spit it out. Before 1997, soda was all I drank.
I used to feed my pleasure center with getting high and drunk, now I feed it with worship and the tangible presence of God. Eternity is more real to me than the present, so my choices are determined by it, not the moment. Parents today are confronted in raising their children of either training them to be successful in the world or alive in Christ, it’s hard to have both because culture demands your complete loyalty, or you will be excluded. Many parents are falling for the serpent’s lies. Their children are learning that loyalties are first to the world, and then to the worship of God. Once that foundation is built, it is not likely to change.
Matthew 6:24
24 No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. NKJ
Nothing has changed since Jesus said this has it?
Be Blessed and controlled by eternity!
Pastor Dave
- Date - May 22, 2019
- Author - David Chisholm
