How many are Hungry for God?!

Perhaps your dream or desire in life is to attain a particular personal ambition.

....It may be to become a flight attendant, a model or a professional in any specific field. All very well however, how about eternal issues, if you have no spiritual hunger what can God for you?

If you have no spiritual vision what can God do with you?

Taking a look at hunger for God and vision of God; consider the tale of two men, Jacob and Esau.

What you sow, you will reap

The Bible says Esau despised his birth right [Gen 28-34]. Why? Because he paid no attention, to spiritual issues rather those that appealed to the flesh (carnal objectives). What you sow you will reap. If you live by the flesh you reap corruption.. …[Gen 27-39-40]. In spite of his wayward way, Esau was his father’s favorite and took after Isaac his father who at his old age hungered after the flesh [Gen 27-4-7]. Little wonder Esau took such a wrong view and decision over his birth right.

Jacob was pampered by his mother Rebecca and he took after her, he became a schemer. Rebecca, Jacobs’s mother tried to help God by using deception and it destroyed the family. Jacob, Esau’s brother cheated him of his birth right and Esau made his brother Jacob live a life of a fugitive (a man without a country and without a home). Throughout Rebecca’s life after that moment she never got to see her beloved son Jacob and had to be tormented by Esau’s wayward behavior. While a fugitive Jacob also in turn got cheated by a man ten times as wicked (his uncle Laban); the wife he loved died of child birth, his beloved son Joseph was sold into Egypt… What you sow, you will reap.

You become like your mentor

From this introduction we see like produces like you become like your mentor. [1 Cor 15:32-33] let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die…evil company corrupts good morals you have to choose your path. On a positive note, Jacob mentored by his mother listen to her and sought after the ways of the God of his father Isaac. Paul tells timothy in [2Tim 2:22] Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

Jesus said; no branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 'I am the true vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will hear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to me Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

So you will never be a person of faith if you hang around an unbelieving crowd. You will never be an eagle if you hang around turkeys. If you want to stir up Godly hunger and passion look for those like minded.

Its a matter of the heart

From our view point in time...[Heb 3:12-19].. See to it you do not have a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God…. so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the con­fidence (faith) we had at first. As has just been said; "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion." Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sin­ned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed?" So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. [Gen 25:32] Esau said of his birth right; Look I am about to die what good is the birth right to me?' Later [Gen 28:6-8]when Jacob had obeyed his father and mother not to marry a Canaanite wife he (Esau) then realised how displeasing they were to his parents, but it was too late.

From God's view point out side time... God said; Jacob I loved Esau I hated. God alone knows the hearts of men. God knew both men even before they were born…. [Rom 9:11-14] Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she (Rebecca) was told, "The older will serve the younger, "Just as it is written: "Jacob l loved, but Esau l hated." What then shall we say? Is God unjust'? Not at all! For he says to Moses; "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. [Ps 51:16-17] You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are' a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart, 0 God, you will not despise. In time Jacob faired as God had said, struggling with God and man and overcoming in both[Gen 32:28]

Call out!

God can over look, all our short comings (sin) if we can love and have a spiritual hunger (call out) for him. God revealed himself to Jacob when he had is 1st divine encounter with God and saw a vision of angels at Bethel. The next significant encounter was when he was returning to his father’s house from his uncle Laban’s. During this time he was facing a dark time in his soul after being on the run for 20yrs. His brother Esau was coming to met him with 400 professional killers (mercenaries). Jacob, tied of conflict and confrontation, probably tired of life it’s self (possibly considering that night to be his last), decided to have a time of solitude with God. His meeting with God that night was a divine life changing experience for ever!

God didn’t come to Jacob in the form of an angel or animal. He wants to be relatable and he wants to relate to the world as such through the preaching of the Gospel [Jn 1: 14] (and the word was God …the word became flesh). So you only need to be what you are to encounter your God! It is not philosophies or some oration that makes the difference in ones life it is an encounter with God! The church is not a society or club but a divine institution full of glory, presence and life that comes from the Holy Spirit. This is our heritage.

By the river Jabbok, Jacob came into close contact with God; hand to hand and leg to leg. He wrestled and refused to let go until something broke (till it was day break)! Jacobs hip was put out of joint (‘broken’) and from that day God took hold of his life forever changing his name from Jacob (the thief and conniver) to Israel (prince with God)! It was God’s love and humility that allowed Jacob to cling to him like a little boy to his Dad (this is a mystery of God; He involves us in his plan). Jacob probably at his wits end said to himself I am tired of results of my own strength, I am not going to make it alone unless you (God) change me and bless me I will not let go!

Broken to God!

Jacob who was self willed and stubborn was made weak in his flesh but strong in God by one touch from God putting his hip out of its socket permanently. Throughout Jacobs’s life he had to lean on God. In [Heb 11:21] the Holy Spirit records Jacobs memorial as one leaning on top of his staff. He was leaning on God, it is the lame broken to God that will possess the land.

So let us all climb on to the alter and be a living sacrifice. It is easy to be a dead sacrifice but as a living sacrifice you have a choice to get off.Jabbok called the place of the pouring river [Gen 32:22]. There is always a river before God consider (Garden of Eden, Ezekiel 47, Revelation, Ps 36) where ever the presence of God is there is a river. God wants to take us to him self where there is so much of his blessing, His Holy Spirit.

How much do you want God to work in and through your life? Drive in! [Jn 7: 37-39] Jesus was urgently crying out.. On the last day of the feast Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “if anyone thirst, let him come to me & drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘out of his heart shall flow, rivers of living water… and this He spoke of the Holy Spirit.

You can not make a horse drink even if you took it to the to the river. You can be in the presence of God and be unmoved untouched, un-impacted!. No one can make you eat unless you are spiritually hungry. You can be given a banquet and you say no I am satisfied. Esau had all the love and the birth right but he despised it.

The river Rhine starts high up the mountains a drop, a trickle, then a stream and a river that impacts millions of people. We are like this when watered by God’s Holy Spirit; we touch the lives of people where we are (school, work or home), then in turn impact our; communities, cities; nations; and continents around the world! May be this has been your hearts cry churning inwardly and you feel what you have is not enough you want more of God, you need solitude with him. Like Jacob you have come to your Jabbok.

In the Furaha Devotional activies we are determined to explore our Jabbok!