Fresh Bread (5) – our appetite

The Lord keeps bringing these verses from Isaiah 55 back to mind over these last weeks.

v1 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. 2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.”

Many years ago our Pastor shared the following vision with our church fellowship. I wanted to share it with you as part of my series on Fresh Bread this Holy Week. Please pray, weigh and test.

” I am going to restore the appetite of the church for the manifest power and presence of God. A spiritual famine has touched your land. It’s not the result of the lack of, or withdrawal of God’s presence and power, but it’s a famine of the appetite of God’s people.

Then I looked and saw two groups of people.  The first group looked thin and drawn and slightly withered, they were frail and looked prematurely old.  God said to me,  these people are not the result of an imposed famine.  Their condition is the result of a famine in their appetites for the presence and power of God.   They have withdrawn in their faith, belief and expectation of God.  As a result their appetites have been suppressed, reduced and their health is at risk.

Then I looked and saw another group of people, they were overweight, large people. I said to myself, they must have an appetite Lord. And I felt the Lord say to me “they are also part of a famine. They have just filled their lives with something other than the manifest power and presence of God. They have substituted their appetite for God for other things, as a result they too have suppressed their appetites.

I was reminded of this scripture. Isaiah 55 v 1-2. “Ho everyone who thirsts come to the waters and you who have no money come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good and delight yourself in abundance. “

I pray that appetites for the wrong, unhealthy things will diminish and that any greed in our lives for those things will loosen its hold on us. I pray God will restore our appetite during these days for Him so that we may hunger and thirst for His righteousness and for the Living Word and will overflow the “goodness of God in the land of the living”. The days are short let us not waste them.