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| Revelations and Glory series |
We have all felt lost at times. We’ve all struggled with questions about our purpose. Ever found yourself asking “Why am I here?” or “What’s the point?” We could describe this as a sense of dissatisfaction. We are no longer satisfied with where we’re at, with what life has to offer. While it might be unpleasant, this is the first step in an amazing and powerful journey. We’re feeling the first hint of a desire for something more. We’re becoming aware of an appetite we have, a hunger not for physical things like food but for spiritual things like meaning and purpose.
We saw last time that the solution to this journey is found in the way that God reveals Himself, reveals His glory to us. He doesn’t tell us everything plainly but asks us to press into the hunger as we pursue revelation from Him. We saw the promise of how we will be changed when we “search things out”. As we behold His glory, we are transformed into His likeness and experience the fulfillment of our purpose, that we were made in the image of God.
The pattern that’s demonstrated here begins with our desire to search things out and ends with a promise that we will be satisfied. But this isn’t the only time we see this promise in Scripture.
The Promise to the Hungry
Notice the similarity to the promise in Jeremiah 29:
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13
Like we discussed in the first post, this displays God’s glory by showing us His character, that in His unapproachable glory He has chosen to be approachable. What’s required of us to approach though? What’s required of us to receive revelation? It’s not intelligence or wisdom (see Luke 10:21), because (as we’ve seen) this revelation does not come from our own reading of the Scripture, but from His willingness to reveal the truth to us as we seek.
If not intelligence, what must we have to receive revelation? Spiritual hunger: a relentless desire to know Him. God has made it so simple. To know Him, we must simply want to know Him. In this way, access to God is not reserved for the smartest or wisest among us but all of us have just as much opportunity to receive it. He is so good! He is so kind!
We’ve seen here that as we pursue Him we are changed. That there is a promise to us when we “search things out”. Jesus used the illustration of hunger several times in His ministry to show us this promise:
- He told us plainly in the Sermon on the Mount that when we hunger for righteousness we will be satisfied (Matthew 5:6).
- He trusted in this promise as He resisted the temptation of Satan (Matthew 4:3-4).
- He demonstrated this promise to His disciples when He did the will of the Father as He shared the good news with the Samaritan woman (John 4:31-34).
Are We Hungry?
This promise cuts both ways though. To be able to see Him, to behold His glory, we must be hungry. We have so many promises in Scripture that He will be with us, but sometimes it feels hard to find Him. We are promised that we will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13), that we will be satisfied (Matthew 5:6), that we will be given the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13). However, these promises are given to us if we seek it with all our heart, if we hunger and thirst for it, if we ask. We know the promise is trustworthy. So, when we aren’t seeing its fulfillment then we have to ask: Am I truly seeking it with all my heart? Am I really hungry for it? Am I wholeheartedly asking for it?
How do we know if we really are? The answer: our actions. Let me explain.
The Theme of Work
We have seen that the concept of spiritual hunger is illustrated for us as natural hunger throughout the Scripture. So, when the apostle Paul teaches the Thessalonians about natural hunger, we can also interpret these principles spiritually. In this passage, Paul teaches several principles about what prevents someone from being able to eat. Since it’s inspired text, these principles reflect the order that God upholds regarding eating, not just physically, but spiritually as well.
The theme of Paul’s rebuke is this:
2 Thessalonians 3:10
If they did not work, then they would not eat. If they wanted to eat, they had to work. This same principle applies spiritually. If we want to receive the food that nourishes our spirit, if we want to receive revelation that deepens our understanding of God, changing us along the way, we must be willing to work for it. This ties in well with the principle of spiritual hunger, just presented more actively here. It’s not enough to want revelation, we must actively pursue it and work for it.
What Keeps us from Eating
Paul doesn’t stop there though. He goes on in this passage to describe the lifestyle that keeps a person from having the right to eat food. Every principle he talks about applies spiritually as well. These things also keep us from eating spiritually, from receiving the revelations that fuel our spiritual life. They tie in well with the principle of spiritual hunger we have already seen but they go on to add more clarity for us as well. They help us understand what prevents us from receiving the spiritual food of revelation (a word from God).
You see, we’ve all gone through dry seasons where we feel disconnected from Him, seasons where we don’t see revelations like we used to. This can leave us wondering: How did this happen? Paul’s lessons answer this question for us. Next time we’re going to get practical on how we overcome dry seasons by understanding what keeps us there.
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