The Hunger Games

READ SOAP Scripture: Psalms 119:33-56

I’ve never seen the movie, but the title, “The Hunger Games,” comes to mind when I consider Matthew 5:6 – “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”  I think of this movie title because when I think back on my life, on all the times that the enemy has, and continues to try to play games with the things I hunger and thirst for. His relentless efforts to get me to hunger and thirst after all the things that are wrong for me. All the things that would lead me down roads of selfishness, pride and countless other things that the Lord has taught me to avoid. The enemy is good at it too. He knows just which types of hungers and thirsts I’m the most susceptible for, just as he knows yours as well. Here are 3 key questions worth prayerfully considering:

1. How can we discern good appetites from bad ones?
 
It’s not always easy to know when we’ve crossed the line from indulging spiritually healthy appetites from sinful and depraved ones. Our old nature will quickly tell us that what we’re engaging in is okay, or at least, not as bad as what someone else may be doing. Sometimes we tell ourselves the classic excuse, “you’re entitled under these circumstances.” So how do we navigate this? 

God’s word in Matthew 25:31-36 says, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.”

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

Jesus makes it clear that the best “dashboard indicators” of healthy hungers, can be observed by our outward actions towards others in His name. This does not allow a lot of room for our usual selfish interests that too often dominate our usual appetites for self-gains. 

Another more direct question we can ask ourselves about our appetites is found in Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”   When we start calling our passions as “treasures,” including admitting that’s where our hearts really want to be, it often becomes easier to then ask ourselves if God considers them treasures or not. Lifting what we consider to be treasures before Him more often than not, reveals just how unworthy of Him and His will for us they actually are.

2. What do you do when your hunger and thirst is NOT what the Lord would have it to be?
 
Psalm 51:10 reads, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”  This verse reminds us that when we are unable to change our unhealthy appetites on our own, the Lord is ready to do so.  More than that, the scripture says that He will grant us a “steadfast spirit,” meaning He will give us the power to continually remain pure, as long as we continue to seek and trust Him to do so.

Malachi 3:3 also states, “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness.” This verse tells us that once the Lord purifies us just as He did the priests of the Old Testament, He can then use us for His works of righteousness that He intends. Maintaining right appetites in the Lord keeps us clean, as well as makes us usable by Him, that He might be served and glorified.

3. How do you maintain the hunger and thirst the Lord wants you to have?
 
Finally, we must admit that we are often prone to lose our focus on the things that the Lord has taught us to do, including trying to maintain healthy spiritual appetites. John 15:4 reveals Jesus’ remedy for being consistent with things like this and beyond, by keeping the right perspective of our relationship to Him, as a vine is to a branch. “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” We remain in Him by continuously observing His word as well as continuously remaining in prayer to yield the kind of fruit that the Father intends.

2 Peter 1:5-9 also helps us with a great check-list of ways to ensure that our fruit is everything it needs to be. “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.”

Prayer:
Lord, we ask that You break any ways of bondage that the enemy or our own selfish ways have on us with wrong appetites. No more “hunger games!” We are tired of being the enemy’s chew toy in this way! We surrender all excuses about how we have given in to the things that we have hungered and thirst after that displease You. Purify us as you did the Levites, so that we may give offerings of righteousness in Your name.  Help us now to remain in Jesus, to bear the fruit You desire in a steadfast way, so that You may be glorified and highly exalted, as You, and You alone so richly deserve. In Jesus’ name. Amen!