For the past couple of weeks I have been dealing with what the doctor called type B flue. I don’t know what that really means but all I can say is that it didn’t feel like the flue. Usually when I get the flue I don’t want to do anything but sleep. I have no appetite, I have no energy. This flue I had little to no energy but I wanted to eat all the time. What made this worst is the doctor prescribed me a medication that made me hyper and increased my appetite.
As I was reading the Bible the other day I couldn’t help to think about how much I wanted to eat while I was sick. Then I thought, why do I not want to “eat” the word of God as much as I want to eat food. This thought took me back to John 6.
Jesus had fed four-thousand people the day before. The next day the people went looking for him and found him on the other side of the lake. He knew why they came, they wanted food. This caused Jesus to challenge them and opened the topic about himself, which they need to consume his body and blood to have eternal life. This teaching was too difficult for them to understand and many of them discontinued to follow him.
As Christians our desire should to come to a deeper personal relationship with Jesus. We are called to abide in him because he wants to abide in us (John 15). As we abide in him more we then become fruitful and this brings glory to the Father.
As I continued to think about our relationship with food today I couldn’t help to notice how covenant food is for us. Think about not even 60 years ago fast food restaurants were not as numerous as they are today. Even in the smallest towns you will find a McDonald’s and maybe a pizza place of some sort. With even the slightest feeling of hunger but not the willingness to prepare a meal for ourselves we can simply get up and run down the road to pick-up a #1 in the drive through. College students completely understand this behavior.
There was a time that anything a person desired to eat had to be grown and prepared right at home. There was not running to the store to get something quick. The time and energy that it took to grow a garden and livestock made eating a meal much more grateful.
Scripture tells us that the desire for the Lord’s word, his wisdom, his instruction is greater than gold and silver and costly jewels. Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a man who was walking through a field and came upon a chest full of treasure. He then covers it, sales all he owns to make the money needed to purchase the field and does so.
I couldn’t help to think about how easy we can access information on any subject in the world yet thought do we know any more than we did. A common attitude is that if the information isn’t in 140 characters or less their attention has been lost. If they cannot watch it on Youtube then there is no interest.
For the Christian I have to ask, is this our attitude to God’s word? Are we really devoted to knowing the Lord or is his merely an idea that can be gained as information from google? To search for costly jewels, gold, and silver one needs to spend some considerable amount of time digging. We can’t simply skip our feet across the ground in hopes to find something of value. We really need to get into the dirt of the matter. Sometimes you have to use different tools to search for what it is you desire. Why can this not be the same attitude?
Allow me to go another direction with this, more towards teens. How much time do you spend on your devise, iPhone or Galaxy, Xbox or PlayStation 4? How important is it to you that your “friends” like your comments and post on Facebook, Snap Chat, or Instagram? What juicy gossip are you looking for on social media? How important is it for you to make it to the next level or make the next achievement on your games? Why not take that same amount of time and desire in those things and place them in coming to know Jesus, if you call yourself a Christian?
Let’s face the facts, we live in an easy access society today and we desire instant gratification for our desires. Maybe that is the reason relationships are merely superficial. Maybe that is why we do not really listen to people when they talk to us. Time means nothing to us, our hunger for things needs to be satisfied and when it is we forget what we purchased to gratify our appetite. If not what we got perhaps what it tasted like. Real relationships take time. Something worth investing in takes time. What we need to also realize is that is our hunger for what we want really of value or are we merely seeking to for a quick solution to our “problem”?
As I was reading the Bible the other day I couldn’t help to think about how much I wanted to eat while I was sick. Then I thought, why do I not want to “eat” the word of God as much as I want to eat food. This thought took me back to John 6.
Jesus had fed four-thousand people the day before. The next day the people went looking for him and found him on the other side of the lake. He knew why they came, they wanted food. This caused Jesus to challenge them and opened the topic about himself, which they need to consume his body and blood to have eternal life. This teaching was too difficult for them to understand and many of them discontinued to follow him.
As Christians our desire should to come to a deeper personal relationship with Jesus. We are called to abide in him because he wants to abide in us (John 15). As we abide in him more we then become fruitful and this brings glory to the Father.
As I continued to think about our relationship with food today I couldn’t help to notice how covenant food is for us. Think about not even 60 years ago fast food restaurants were not as numerous as they are today. Even in the smallest towns you will find a McDonald’s and maybe a pizza place of some sort. With even the slightest feeling of hunger but not the willingness to prepare a meal for ourselves we can simply get up and run down the road to pick-up a #1 in the drive through. College students completely understand this behavior.
There was a time that anything a person desired to eat had to be grown and prepared right at home. There was not running to the store to get something quick. The time and energy that it took to grow a garden and livestock made eating a meal much more grateful.
Scripture tells us that the desire for the Lord’s word, his wisdom, his instruction is greater than gold and silver and costly jewels. Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a man who was walking through a field and came upon a chest full of treasure. He then covers it, sales all he owns to make the money needed to purchase the field and does so.
I couldn’t help to think about how easy we can access information on any subject in the world yet thought do we know any more than we did. A common attitude is that if the information isn’t in 140 characters or less their attention has been lost. If they cannot watch it on Youtube then there is no interest.
For the Christian I have to ask, is this our attitude to God’s word? Are we really devoted to knowing the Lord or is his merely an idea that can be gained as information from google? To search for costly jewels, gold, and silver one needs to spend some considerable amount of time digging. We can’t simply skip our feet across the ground in hopes to find something of value. We really need to get into the dirt of the matter. Sometimes you have to use different tools to search for what it is you desire. Why can this not be the same attitude?
Allow me to go another direction with this, more towards teens. How much time do you spend on your devise, iPhone or Galaxy, Xbox or PlayStation 4? How important is it to you that your “friends” like your comments and post on Facebook, Snap Chat, or Instagram? What juicy gossip are you looking for on social media? How important is it for you to make it to the next level or make the next achievement on your games? Why not take that same amount of time and desire in those things and place them in coming to know Jesus, if you call yourself a Christian?
Let’s face the facts, we live in an easy access society today and we desire instant gratification for our desires. Maybe that is the reason relationships are merely superficial. Maybe that is why we do not really listen to people when they talk to us. Time means nothing to us, our hunger for things needs to be satisfied and when it is we forget what we purchased to gratify our appetite. If not what we got perhaps what it tasted like. Real relationships take time. Something worth investing in takes time. What we need to also realize is that is our hunger for what we want really of value or are we merely seeking to for a quick solution to our “problem”?
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