Into the Depths of God 2

Appetite is a life sign. Healthy people get hungry.

Our appetites can define us. Christians are to be people who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt.5:6) Too often we do lip service to that appetite and rather focus on the ordinary Maslovian values –shelter, food, safety, power, and sexual fulfillment.

Without self-denial, the eater becomes a glutton, the earner a larcenist, every lover a rapist. So at the onset of our call to follow Jesus is his entreaty – stern and yet beautiful: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily an follow me. (Luke 9:32)

Why don’t we deny ourselves? First, our focus is usually on the braking system rather than the steering wheel. Second, we live at too great a distance from the Grand Enabler. Finally, we cannot get heaven’s perspective on the real values
1. The braking system. So many think that a commitment to God involves “braking”, giving up some behavior or quitting some activity. “Gotta quick drinking and smoking.” However, spiritual growth occurs by ever starting – every day starting some creative new thing that will sponsor a creative, never boring walk with Christ. Our focus is Jesus, not what we feel we must give up.

2. A feeling of emptiness is a sure sign of living too far from the “steering wheel.” It begins innocuously with a dabbling in an unwholesome something. Then the fiend is made welcome. Then his presence customary. Then habitual, evolving into addiction rather than walking with Christ as the Master of life. It all adds up to a kind of powerlessness, which always results from living too far from the Grand Enabler.

3. Failing to get heaven’s perspective on the real values. What to do about this blockage? Admission of our sin and repentance. Feeling the pain of our sins to convince ourselves we are taking our sin seriously.

The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man’s respectable goodness; then the Holy Ghost, who produces these agonies, begins the formation of the son of God in the life. The victory lies in our hunger for the spiritual intimacy of our union with Christ.

That can be terrifying. We are not afraid he will destroy us. We are only afraid of what he might require of us.
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily an follow me.