The Difference Between Being Hungry And Starving Yourself….

Reading through the book of Amos, you reach chapter 8. Here Amos is telling Israel (the split Northern Kingdom) about how God is about to exile them into the North. He then goes on to tell them there will be a famine. However, this famine will not be one of lack of food, but of lack of His presence (His Word). Can you imagine God pulling back? Allowing us to live on our own? A world with no truth? No morality? A world void of order? Scary, isn’t it? Now think of all the people who reject or deny God’s existence. Do their lives resemble any of the above mentioned things? How do they live? Have order in their lives? Have hope? Find meaning? When God calls a man, and he doesn’t respond, God’s answer is a famine, a life without His presence. That’s scary. And to think our nature welcomes that. Yet our spirits fear it. The most important aspect of all of this is which one takes precedent, our spirit or our flesh? The answer lies in what lasts. Our spirit will continue on throughout eternity, while our flesh will someday cease to exist. Does this change your perspective? It should. Our spirit feeds off what is eternal, and that is God’s Word. There’s a big difference between being hungry and starving yourself. One is mis-management of your resources, while the other is self-imposed. Our lack of pursuit of God eventually leads to a famine. And when it goes on long enough, there is no going back. Feed your spirit daily. God’s word is complete nutrition for your soul.

11 “The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord,“when I will send a famine on the land–not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord.12 People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the word of the Lord,but they will not find it.13 Beautiful girls and strong young men will grow faint in that day,thirsting for the Lord’s word.14 And those who swear by the shameful idols of Samaria–who take oaths in the name of the god of Dan and make vows in the name of the god of Beersheba–they will all fall down,never to rise again.” Amos 8:11-14