Last week, we were challenged to question the things which we crave.
We were reminded that God created us with cravings, but that we often settle for lesser things than God created them for. We turn to created things rather than the Creator to satisfy those cravings and are left empty. God has promised to satisfy our desires with good things.
It isn’t that the things of the world which we crave are necessarily bad. It is when they entice us and drag us away from God that they become issues. It is when we value and desire and pursue them as much or more than God that they become what the Bible calls idols.
The first commandment teaches us not to put anything at all before or equal to the Lord. Jesus then re-affirms this issue of priorities by teaching us not to worry about what we are going to eat or drink or wear. He then says:
Matthew 6:32-33
32 …Your heavenly Father knows that you need these things. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Again, it’s not that earthly things are bad or evil. It’s not that God doesn’t want us to have them. It’s when we get our priorities misaligned and replace the Creator with created things that there is an issue.
Let’s dig a little deeper into this and cut right to the heart of the matter.
Is it perhaps that we don’t trust God?
We live in an extremely consumer-driven culture. The customer is always right. We expect what we want, exactly how we want it, and receiving it right now. Even in our rural area, we can place an order on our phone and have it dropped off at our door within hours. In some areas, drones are delivering items even faster.
Not only do we want things quickly, but we want to be able to fully customize it as well. We’re even studying and experimenting with being able to customize features of our babies such as their gender or eye and hair color.
Surrendering control of our cravings isn’t a very popular concept.
Nobody goes to a restaurant that brings to your table whatever food and drinks the staff decides that they want you to eat. Nobody goes to a clothing store and tells the cashier to just grab whatever they want for you to wear. Nobody goes to a realtor and tells them to buy them a house. You know, wherever the realtor decides, however much they decide to spend, however many bedrooms and bathrooms they decide, and so on.
Do we trust God?
Do we trust His promise to satisfy our desires with good things?
Will what He provides us be sufficient?
Will we be content with it?
Will it fully satisfy and bless us?
If we believe God’s word to be true, then we should actually expect God to provide us with something far better than we could ever obtain on our own!
James 1:17
Every good and perfect (teleios – lacking nothing necessary to completeness) gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows
We can’t really do any better than perfect, right? If it is good and perfect, then it could have only come from God!
There is another scripture that comes to mind with this that we often quote. I’m going to back up several verses for the full context of this prayer that Paul wrote for the church in Ephesus:
Ephesians 3:16-21
16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine – that has to be better than anything that we could ever come up with, right?
The Passion Translation
He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you.
Amplified Bible
Him who is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think [infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams], according to His power that is at work within us.
This is what we call hope. It’s way more than just a fuzzy feeling or emotion! It’s fullness of trust that God not only can, but that He WILL provide perfection for us. It will be best. It will be far more than we need and we will receive it at exactly the right time.
Do we trust God?
We turn to an acrostic poem written by a guy who we can well relate to. Well, in terms of waiting on God to fulfill His promise, at least.
God made him some awesome promises. God gave him a powerful anointing. With his bare hands, at a young age, he fought and won against bears and lions. Through worship by simply playing his lyre, he drove off evil spirits. In the Israeli military, he killed tens of thousands of God’s enemies.
God also permitted him to endure some harsh opposition and many years of painful waiting and wanting and trusting. He spent years running away from a single man who was determined to kill him. In the midst of it all, David wrote:
Psalm 34:1-14
Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him away, and he left.
1 I will extol the Lord at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
2 I will glory in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
3 Glorify the Lord with me;
let us exalt his name together.
4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
5 Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
6 This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.
8 Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
9 Fear the Lord, you his holy people,
for those who fear him lack nothing.
10 The lions may grow weak and hungry,
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
11 Come, my children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12 Whoever of you loves life
and desires to see many good days,
13 keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from telling lies.
14 Turn from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.
If we want to love life, if we desire to see many good days, then we should be cautious with what we speak, do good, and seek and pursue peace.
Most of us crave righteousness, but not God’s righteousness. We crave being right by proving others wrong. We crave defending ourselves and justifying ourselves. We crave being better than others. However, this is self-righteousness and not true, Godly righteousness.
Our flesh proudly craves to boast in our own righteousness, but our souls crave peace. Our flesh craves comparison, but our souls crave identity. When we stand before Jesus, there will be no doubt that absolutely nothing about us is good or righteous. Our righteousness can come from Him, alone, because only He is righteous.
Jesus will not compare us to others and judge our righteousness based on theirs. He will compare us to the person whom He created us to be. We will be judged by His standard alone to His will alone and to His purposes alone.
Our trust and our confidence must remain in Christ alone!
What is it that steals away our peace?
James 4:1-10
1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
Our peace is stolen away when the cravings within us are not satisfied. We try to satisfy those cravings with things of the world which we cannot have and so we quarrel and fight since we aren’t getting what we want.
Why are those cravings not satisfied? Because we don’t ask God to satisfy them. AND, if we do ask God to satisfy them, we ask with the wrong motive of our own personal pleasure. God likens this to adultery. We were created for the Creator, yet crave the creation. We want more of the world and less of God.
4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
In the KJV and original Greek, verse 4 is written to say, “You adulterers and adulteresses.”, “moichos and moichalis.” Translated, this does mean adulterous as well as faithless. Adultery occurs when we, who were created and purposed to give our bodies exclusively to our spouse, and even entered into a covenant called marriage that this would be the case, choose instead to give them to someone other than our spouse.
Adultery with God is when we, His bride, choose to live our lives for anything else. We, who have vowed to be faithful to God choose to be faithless and not to trust Him to satisfy our desires with good things like He promised to do.
Do we trust God?
Do we live by faith in Him?
God jealously longs to dwell with us and to fill us up to overflowing with His Holy Spirit. God wants to satisfy our desires! However, we often resist Him, grow impatient with Him, and instead turn to lesser things.
The Message translation states it this way:
James 4:4-6 (MSG)
You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “he’s a fiercely jealous lover.” And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you’ll find.
When we truly look to Jesus, we will find that He is more than enough than we will ever need! Whatever He provides is worth the wait! If we are left in waiting, there is a purpose for it and only He can reveal that purpose to us. We must turn to Him!
As the hymn implores us:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace
We are also reminded to consider those who have gone before us. We are warned to learn from their mistakes so that we don’t repeat them! Adultery is one word used to describe what we do when we turn to anything but God to satisfy our cravings. Another word is idolatry.
1 Corinthians 10
Warnings From Israel’s History
1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
Most of the people just kept looking back. They craved the things of Egypt, even though it came along with their enslavement. They saw the miraculous hand of God, but their hearts continued to long for lesser things. As a result, they missed out on God’s best for them – His promised land. They could not enter in because of their divided hearts.
What do our hearts long for?
What do we crave?
6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.” 8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did – and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9 We should not test Christ, as some of them did – and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not grumble, as some of them did – and were killed by the destroying angel.
11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
Idol Feasts and the Lord’s Supper
14 Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. 15 I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. 16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.
18 Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? 19 Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. 22 Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
The Believer’s Freedom
23 “I have the right to do anything,” you say – but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything” – but not everything is constructive. 24 No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.
25 Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, 26 for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”
27 If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. 28 But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience. 29 I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours. For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience? 30 If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?
31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God – 33 even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.
The old adage rings true that “we are what we eat.” What do we choose to consume? What do we spend ourselves on? Are we divided between the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons? Do we grab some things from the table of God and some things from the table of demons? Do we cry out with our lips for more of God, but then crave in our hearts more of the world?
In other words, are we lukewarm?
God is calling out:
Isaiah 55:1-2
1 “Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
Let us wholeheartedly turn to the Lord!
Let us surrender our whole lives to His Lordship!
Let’s repent of adultery and idolatry!
Let’s trust Him and place all of our faith in Him!
He will satisfy our desires with good things!
At just the right time, He will fulfill every one of His promises!