What Are You Really Hungry For
Romans 16:17-18 Amplified Bible (AMP)
17 I appeal to you, brethren, to be on your guard concerning those who create dissensions and difficulties and cause divisions, in opposition to the doctrine (the teaching) which you have been taught. [I warn you to turn aside from them, to] avoid them.18 For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites and base desires, and by ingratiating and flattering speech, they beguile the hearts of the unsuspecting and simpleminded [people].
Have you ever been hungry for a particular food, and you either could not get to it, could not find it or the place was closed, and someone then suggested an alternative, how did that make you feel? Most people would say the substitute was not an option, others would admit frustration, because attempting to satisfy your appetite with anything other than what you really desire is selling yourself short, or not satisfying the original desire. I remember just recently I had two people on two separate occasions attempt to tell me that women were not meant to preach the gospel. I remember the frustration of the initial moments and then the Holy Spirit reminded me that we are not to argue the Word of God because God can defend His Word all by Himself, but only stand on what it says. I remember responding in scripture and referring to what I knew in the Greek and Hebrew and eventually letting the conversations stand, and my knowledge of the truth and God’s Word stand alone! Nothing that they were attempting to feed me satisfied my appetite for truth of God’s Word and God’s Will as revealed in scripture.
Unfortunately not everyone will agree with us all of the time, especially as it concerns what we believe, because everyone has an opinion or a perspective. But we must learn to develop an appetite, a desire for God above all else. When we begin to desire the truth of the Word and we are willing to search out the scriptures and to allow God through the working of the Holy Spirit to speak to us we will find truth and the true things of God. We will not desire to eat from the table of others opinion and perspectives that lead us away from the truth and satisfy our own flesh or the agenda of others; we will always defer to truth because we have built up an appetite for truth. It is when we have not truly developed relationship with God in a way that we know His voice and follow after no other, we defer to His word as the ultimate authority, and we are obedient to His will, by bring the flesh under subjection that we lean to our own understanding and the doctrine and understanding of others; we will fight for what we want above all else. It is when we find ourselves in this state that we will bring discord, dissention and causing some of our brethren to go astray; by our pulling apart the Word of God to make it fit our agenda. You see what we crave and hunger for will drive us, our behaviors, beliefs and actions. The Bible reminds us in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed and fortunate and happy and spiritually prosperous (in that state in which the born-again child of God enjoys His favor and salvation) are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God), for they shall be completely satisfied!” When we hunger and thirst after the things that our fleshly desires we will never be fully satisfied, and we will find ourselves looking again to be filled, but when we allow the things of God to fill us we will be completed satisfied and filled to overflowing.
Just as when we are choosing a meal during the course of our day, it is our choice to choose something healthy, and nutritionally balanced or to eat junk food, it is the same with us spiritually, we can choose to run after what satisfies the flesh or we can sow and feed our spirit. But if we choose to sow to our flesh and our agenda or even other people’s agenda that has been sown into us, be careful not to cause your agenda, and your appetite to become someone else’s problem, by teaching them your bad eating habits. Don’t lead others astray by discounted and tearing down the truth of God’s Word, just to satisfy your fleshly desires. Seek first the Kingdom, hunger and thirst after what is the righteousness of God so that you and those you encounter may truly be filled. If you seek to be filled by the flesh and of false doctrines and opinion of everyone to include yourself may end up with food poisoning that may cause a spiritual death.
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