Weekly Devo - "Think About Your Hunger Pains" - 10/8/2012

from Lenae, GEMS Training Manager

 

THINK ABOUT YOUR HUNGER PAINS

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”

John 6:53

I come from a long line of grumblers. All the children of Abraham do. The Israelite community grumbled in the wilderness because they were starving to death, so God provided manna. Every day everyone had as much manna as they needed. Miraculous. Sadly, in time they whined because they were sick of God’s menu; they hungered for the food of Egypt – cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic (Exodus 16:3, 18, Numbers 11:4-6).

Fast forward to John chapter 6. There are 5,000 men, plus women and children, sitting on the mountainside near the Sea of Galilee with no food to eat. It’s quite possible that a number of people from the group thought they were starving. Again, God provided. Jesus took five small barley loaves and two small fish, gave thanks, and distributed it. After eating until their stomachs were full, there were twelve baskets of barley loaves leftover (v. 1-13). Miraculous. Sadly, the very next day they were grumbling because they were hungry.

The crowds remembered the manna their fathers had eaten in the wilderness. Now they had received bread on the mountainside, and they wanted more. “Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread” (v. 34).

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life, He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (v. 35).

At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven” (v. 41). Sadly, they again whined about God’s menu. They hungered for food that spoils; Jesus gave them food that endures to eternal life (v. 27). They hungered for materials things (v. 22-27), hungered for good works theology instead of faith (v. 28-29), and hungered for miracles (v. 30-33). And when the One they needed most, the Bread of Life, offered Himself, and a promise that they would never go hungry or thirsty again, they refused Him (v. 35).

Think about your hunger pains. What do you and I hunger for most? Do we hunger for God or for His gifts? Are our thoughts and pursuits on “food that spoils” or on Jesus, the Bread of Heaven?

Think on it: When’s the last time you were starving for friendship, for a physical need, for peace, or for ____________? Surrender that hunger and pray: Jesus, feed me! O God, fill me. Just give me Jesus!   

Let’s renounce the secular or religious happy meals which prove so fatal to their eaters and which stop them from eating God’s salvation. Let’s feed deeply, daily and devotedly on Jesus.

Phil Moore