Tested Hunger

Echoes of Truth

January 27th

Theme: Passionate Hunger 

I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so long as I could gain souls for Christ. — David Brainerd

When God becomes the supreme desire of a man’s heart, all he pursues is to have others come to the experience of God as he has.

Such a man certainly has come to feed of God in such ways that he is so driven with the course of exalting Christ before others and starting up the fire he has caught in them too.

In such a life, he is no longer bothered about convenience nor about comfort.

Ease loses its authority over that man. Hunger redirects this man’s priorities.

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Paul’s confession, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21), is one of the many examples of a man deeply rooted in intimacy. He was simply hungry for souls.

In other words his very existence had become a matter of giving himself to anything Christ needed Him for. His goal had become to make Christ known no matter the price to be paid.

What makes our hunger for God credible is when it is revealed in as far as we are willing to go in seeking God. Most times it is tested by suffering.

Paul’s confession: “We are hard pressed on every side… perplexed… persecuted… struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9) is a reflection of the ultimate decision to lay down one’s life or death because Christ has been found worthy of living or dying for.

The hunger to satisfy Christ becomes greater than that to satisfy self because there is nothing richer in life than knowing Christ drives such a life and gives it meaning.

That person thus engages life with the desire that others also partake of the redemptive power that has touched, saved, and changed his soul. He longs that others also are freed from the old power of self that kept him bound to an unfulfilled life.

True hunger for God will not make you ask how much suffering is enough before you withdraw your obedience. It simply makes you yield. Like Moses, who chose the reproach of Christ over the treasures of Egypt (Hebrews 11:24–26). God’s presence outweighs every earthly security.

This kind of hunger confronts a Christianity that seeks God only when things are convenient. In fact, right from time, Jesus has been explicit about His expectations from us: “Whoever does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:33).

This confronts us with an uncomfortable question: What conditions have we placed on our devotion?

When we experience true hunger, God becomes worth more than comfort because He has become more real than comfort.

Let Us Pray:
Dear Lord, please purify my hunger for You. Expose where my hunger has any form of conditions attached to it. Strip me of devotion that survives only in ease. Teach us to value Your presence above comfort and convenience. Teach me to obey You wherever You lead, until obedience becomes our truest expression of love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.