Echoes of Truth
January 26th
Theme: Passionate Hunger
You’ve been recreated and the only one who can satisfy you is Christ and that’s why it’s useless to go to other things. – Paul Washer
It was important for Apostle Paul to hammer to the Ephesian Church that they had already put the old self of sin away and that what is expected of them is to live out the new life that is available to them in Jesus Christ.
In his words, Ephesians 4:22-24 (Living Bible), ‘…then throw off your old evil nature—the old you that was a partner in your evil ways—rotten through and through, full of lust and sham. Now your attitudes and thoughts must all be constantly changing for the better. Yes, you must be a new and different person, holy and good. Clothe yourself with this new nature.’
Paul needed to clarify that because he had come to understand human nature: when you get rid of a habit, it must be replaced with another habit because man was made to do things.
In other words, as often quoted, an idle hand is the devil’s workshop because the hand needs to get busy doing something.
Since the old man and its habits have been cast off, the new man and new habits must take control and occupy that space.
By translation, the very things that made up the old habits, hunger, desires, ambition, passions, if they have all been cast aside, it is important that each one is replaced. There is a need for new habits, hunger, desires, ambition, passions.
The things we used to hunger for, seek and long for in the old way of life are filled with selfishness, covetousness, pride, self-righteousness, self-justification. It was all about what to gain at the expense of others. It was nothing but evil and detestable in God’s sight.
This is because no matter how noble a course is, if it is done by the flesh, God will never endorse it.
Now that we have given up that old way of life, why then have our appetites not changed?
Yes, the language has changed, God is more evident in our vocabulary and outward communications. But, if our core were laid bare, would God be seen at its centre as the fuel driving our day to day living?
The kind of appetites we still have secretly or openly craves and pursues the glory of this world and pursues it in the pathways that God has not carved for us. The honest truth is that we have still not started following Jesus.
Anyone who will follow Jesus certainly will have new appetites because it is He who leads the way. He said in Luke 9:23, deny self (your own appetites), take up your cross (willingness to embrace My own appetites), and follow Me (I determine the way and the glory).
The reason why we will take cutthroat means to get more money, the promotion, buy that car, phone, change location, get married to just anyone, live extravagantly and all other variances is because we are yet to fully understand what it means to be a new creature.
When what mostly consumes us how we can get this and that but when checked well, it is basically not what draws us into deeper intimacy and fellowship with God, we certainly are not controlled by the appetites of the new creation.
Colossians 3:9-10 tells us (KJV) that, “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” Therefore the passions and hunger of the new man in us is meant to pursue anything and everything that draws us into becoming like Christ.
It is meant to drive us into increasing knowledge that is lived out in the image of Christ. The new creation hunger seeks for the fulfilment of Romans 8:29, ‘For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.’ It conforms us into the image of the Creator of the new man.
That is where true hunger lies and where satisfaction is found for day to day living. The reward is not only becoming like Jesus but finding true rest for our souls because the master of this world, mammon, will have no hold over us.
Listen to this short sermon by Bro Zac on the old man:
Let us Pray:
Lord Jesus, I know You have recreated me, yet I acknowledge that many times my appetites have not changed. Forgive me for seeking satisfaction in things that cannot fill the new life You have given me. Search my heart and uproot every hunger that is not from You. Where old desires still rule, replace them with longings for intimacy and conformity to Christ. Teach me to deny myself and embrace Your will fully. Let the appetites of the new creation rise strong within me, until my satisfaction is found in You alone. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Discover more from The BUD Family Africa
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
