What is the secret to satisfaction? Do you know Jesus promises to give the real satisfaction for your life?
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled (Matthew 5:6 NKJV)..
• In Malaysia, most of us don’t know much about hunger and thirst. The poorest among us will still have three simple meals per day and clean water to drink! It is hard for us to figure out what Jesus was saying.
• If God open your spiritual eyes, you will see many of us are seriously starving in our spirit. We all have a spiritual hunger inside of us, but we just don’t know how to recognize it.
• We always hear the phrases like “My life is empty”, “I’m bored”, “I’m restless”, “Something seems to be missing in my life”, “There must be more to life than this”. Even when things are going good, when there seems to be success in life, there is this gnawing feeling on the inside ? something’s missing!
1. You don’t find lasting satisfaction in pleasure
If I could just take a cruise... retire in luxury... travel the world, then I would be happy.
Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content (Ecclesiastes 1:8 NLT).
• Most advertisements on television appeal to this hunger in us. “The taste that satisfies”. If that were true you’d only have to have one cup, you’d never need another cigarette.
• Many people are so dissatisfied in life even to the point that they’ll try anything. They’ll break the rules, they’ll go get drunk, or they’ll try one night stands. The Bible says, “The pleasures of sin last a short time". They just don’t last.
2. You don’t find lasting satisfaction in performance
Workaholics eventually learn this:
When we use our wisdom, knowledge, and skill to get what we own, why do we have to leave it to someone who didn't work for it? This is senseless and wrong. What do we really gain from all of our hard work? Our bodies ache during the day, and work is torture. Then at night our thoughts are troubled. It just doesn't make sense (Ecclesiastes 2:21-23 CEV).
• There is a myth that says, “Success produces satisfaction”. But that’s just not true. Many successful people are very unsatisfied on the inside. After the thrill of winning, winning a whole lot, there comes that emptiness that... something’s not there. The Bible says, “Man is always working, never satisfied”.
3. You don’t find lasting satisfaction in possessions
Today there are more products available than ever before and they all say “Satisfaction Guaranteed”. Twice as many products as there were ten years ago. Are people twice as happy? No.
• Many times I have this experience, my heart really desire to have something, I will go looking for it, after I got it, I realise it’s not what I want. I’m dissatisfied.
Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness! (Ecclesiastes 5:10 NLT).
• Many think, “When I get enough money, then all of my problems will be solved”. The rich know that’s not true.
• What is then the secret of satisfaction?
Seek your happiness in the Lord; and he will give you your heart’s desire (Psalms 37:4 GN)..
• Happiness is a by product of seeking God. If you make happiness your goal in life, you’re going to miss it. Many people look to everything else to find happiness, and they can’t find it. Finally they say, “Well, I’ll try God. Maybe I’ll find happiness there”.
4. How do you experience real satisfaction in life?
a. Recognize my real hunger
What is missing in my life? Why I feel empty? A lot of people really don’t know what they want in life.
• The Bible says, we have a spirit, soul and our spirit and soul live in this physical body. What makes you uniquely you is what inside of you.
• Furthermore, God makes your spirit with the spiritual DNA to know Him, to experience Him and be loved by Him. Nothing can replace God in your life.
• True satisfaction comes, when you allow God to fill that place in your life.
• You need to recognize what your real hunger is. Your hunger is your spirit hungry for God – The Spirit.
• You need to know that God already ingrained a spiritual hunger in you. You don’t need to look for it or search for it somewhere else. It is deep inside you.
• Don’t be fool by the idea that only a certain people have spiritual hunger. The fact is when you were born; God gave you a physical appetite to keep you alive. If you didn’t have an appetite you’d just shrivel up and die. Likewise, He gave you a spiritual appetite to know Him. Unfortunately many do not know how to recognize it. It is not something that we were taught to value. Thus we did not respond to it.
The Spirit we received does not make us slaves again to fear; it makes us children of God. With that Spirit we cry out, "Father." And the Spirit himself joins with our spirits to say we are God's children (Romans 8:15-16 NCV).
• This verse says that God put in us a spirit that desire after Him.
How then can I recognise a spiritual hunger in me?
• Spiritual hunger comes in many ways: 1. A sense of emptiness, “something missing in my life”, 2. A sense of boredom or restlessness, 3. A sense of dryness in the soul, 4. You feel lost or meaningless, “What is the purpose of life?” 5. You feel distress, 6. Your desire for spiritual encounter, 7. You have a feeling similar to homesick or missing someone you love.
• All above are the basic spiritual feeling or inner quest of your life that are not satisfied by going to a movie, using internet, working hard or having sex. This is a hunger in your spirit to know God.
b. Stop eating junk food
If God has put in me the ability to hunger after him, why I do not seem to have any interest to seek after spiritual things?
Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? (Isaiah 55:2a NKJV).
• You need to stop eating spiritual junk food.
• Quit looking for satisfaction from the world. Quit wasting your time and your money on things of the world that really don’t satisfy. What you are really looking for is God. Junk food makes you feel full but not satisfied.
• Do you know the difference between being filled and being satisfied? Don’t turn to worldly things when the sign of spiritual hunger surface, instead turn to Jesus.
• There is a lot of spiritual junk food – movie, internet, animation, sex etc. There are more things to fill up your time and your money and we move from pleasure to pleasure, thrill to thrill thinking “This is going to be the answer in my life! This is what is going to make me satisfied!” And it doesn’t last! It’s a temporary high.
c. Start looking to Christ for satisfaction
Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35 NLT).
Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life” (John 4:13-14 NLT).
• We can’t survive without food and water, so Jesus is saying “It’s more than you want Me ? you need Me. You need Me to survive. I am the bread of life, the living water. I made you and you can’t make it without Me.
• When you’re hungry, you take action ? you eat. So, when you’re spiritually hungry you need to do three things ? come, believe, drink.
• First, you come to Christ. Second, you believe in Christ. Third, you drink of Christ.
• Some of you have never done this ? never taken these steps. You’ve never come to Christ and believed in Him. You’ve believed about Him, but there’s a difference in believing about God and believing in God. I believe about Hitler but I’m not a Nazi. I believe in Christ and I’m a Christian ? because I’ve committed my life to Him. It’s more than just head knowledge.
• Have you realized yet that something’s missing in your life? In spite of all the success, and the apparent outward satisfaction, inside you there is this undercurrent saying “I’m not really satisfied. At the deepest level of my soul, in my gut, I know that there’s got to be more to life than just get up, go to work, come home, watch TV and go to bed. There’s got to be more”. And there is.
• Maybe you’d say, “In spite of the fact that life seems relatively good in light of the rest of the world, there’s this gnawing dissatisfaction that even when I’m the winner, even when I’m number one, I’m dissatisfied on the inside. There is not a real peace and contentment in there”.
• What do you do? Take these three steps: I come, I believe, I drink. Your hunger for happiness is met in knowing God and being known by Him and in loving God and being loved by Him and developing a relationship with Him and finding out the purpose for which you were put on this earth. As you seek Him, you find that happiness and that satisfaction. He will not turn you down!
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