The God Satisfied Life

The eyes of all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works.

The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. He will also hear their cry and will save them.

And two brief passages from John 6 and John 7. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. Imagine that you are a citizen in one of the many countries on earth right now where there isn't enough food to go around. You take the last bit of money that you have, you go down to the village square trying to find some kind of food to provide for yourself and your family.

You get down there and there are lots of people, but not one morsel of food to be purchased. People are milling around and they're angry and they're upset and they're worried. And suddenly a man climbs up on a fence and nails a sign on the side of an old building which says, Free food tomorrow at 10 o'clock.

And everybody of course begins to mock and joke, you know, I'll see it when I, I'll believe it when I see it. Yeah, where's it going to come from? But the next morning at 9 a.m., an hour before the time when it's to arrive, that whole village square is jam-packed with people. People who can't even stand up anymore.

They're so weak, they're leaning against the trees, they're sitting in the grass waiting and hoping that perhaps it will be enough. At 10 o'clock, right on the nose, the sound of a convoy of trucks can be heard coming up the dusty road and the convoy lumbers into the square and comes to a stop. And then the drivers climb out of their cabs and it turns out that they're nothing but skin and bones.

And people say, oh that's the way the drivers look, they can't have any food. They go around the back of their trucks and unlock them, throw open the doors, and lo and behold, every single truck is empty. And so somebody says, what are you trying to do? You know, what kind of joke is this? And the spokesman for the driver says, we were sent here to bring truckloads of food to the people.

Yeah, but where is the food? What happened to it? Well, on the third night out from the supply depot, we were robbed and all the rice was taken. Well, then why didn't you turn around and get some more? And the answer comes back, silence. Now absurd as this may sound, the truth of the matter is that many of us are actually in that same situation.

We think of ourselves as the apostles, as the sent ones, and that we have to bring life to those who are dead, and healing to those who are sick, and good news to those who are crying out for something real. But somewhere between the father's throne and the wilderness where people are famished for the truth of God. But instead of going back to our father whose supply is limitless, we plod right on with our empty trucks, and we make promises, and we offer things to people, and we talk about Jesus, and everything is fine until somebody calls our blood.

And we discover that when people really reach out to take hold of the reality of God from us, our trucks are empty. And if some of us would be, or if all of us would be frank and honest as we look about the ministries that we've been exercising in recent months, or perhaps years, we would discover that how many, many times we offered something to people, but when they reached out to take it, there was nothing there. And their lives weren't changed.

We worked with them, and we worked with them, and nothing happened. And we wonder why. Now the scribes and Pharisees of our Lord's day were in the same situation.

You know, they seemed to have their spiritual life together. They knew their scriptures, at least in their minds, and yet when it came to actually ministering any kind of life from God to the people, their trucks were empty. When our Lord came along with his full truck and began to bring life to the dead, and healing to the sick, and recovery of sight to the blind, and liberty to the Catholics, the contrast between the empty truck legalism of the Pharisees and the overflowing life of Jesus was unmistakable.

And the reason Jesus was able to come forth with life for people and truly touch them with something that was real, that they knew was real, was because Jesus was continuously drawing into himself, feeding, drinking in the Spirit of his Father. He was being satisfied by the Spirit of the living God continuously as he walked this world in flesh and blood, so that he was then able to give forth. But it was never his.

It always came from the Father as he made clear again and again. The first priority in our Lord's life was his relationship with the Father. That was number one, and everything else had to be built on this, and he would allow nothing to get in the way of that.

I have myself to do nothing. It is the Father who dwells in me. He does the work.

These are his words that come forth, he would say. And so likewise, the first priority in our lives has to be our relationship with Jesus. And unless this relationship with Jesus is alive and burning and satisfying and filling us with the life of God, we have absolutely nothing real to give to those around us.

If the branch does not abide in the vine, it cannot bear fruit. And many of us still don't understand what this means in our practical living. The Lord is nigh unto all that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.

He will fulfill their desires, and he will hear their cry and save them if they fear him. Every martyr and every prophet and every man or woman of God who has ever lived has had to come to the place in his or her life where they knew that they had to get their life from God alone, and draw on this continuously. And this is exactly what our Lord promised when he said to the disciples, stay in Jerusalem until you'll be endowed with power from on high.

And what is the gift of the Holy Spirit but the presence of a living God in us to satisfy us and fill us and quicken us so that we being satisfied in our hearts with God's presence can then come out with something real for those around us. It is only when the Holy Spirit begins to move on us and indwell us and rule us that we begin then to move away from all those other things that we've been pursuing to try to get our satisfaction, very often religious things or things that appear to be very, very good, but they're not God. And so under the anointing of the Spirit, as we yield to the Spirit, we are turned from all this and we begin to open our hearts to God and he begins to fill us.

And we notice that there comes now a rhythm. The Spirit does two things. He creates in us a continuous need and then he comes around and he satisfies that need back and forth on this goes.

So far, perhaps everybody would agree. Now it comes to bringing this down into specific things in our lives and what this really means to be stirred with need in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and satisfied as we reach out to God in our need. From Revelation 5, verse 6, and between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

And you say, well, I thought there was only one spirit. Now we hear of seven. What does this mean? And for sure there's only one spirit.

But it's also true that as the Spirit of God begins to move upon us, he creates in our hearts seven needs that are then answered with seven satisfactions, you could say. It's as if the blazing light of God's glory coming down in the Spirit splits apart into seven burning flames that create seven God thirsts inside the body of Christ in the church, which reach up to God and are answered then by seven flames of God's satisfaction coming down and touching us. And when these flames touch, we begin to have light.

And what are they? Seeing the crowds, he went up on a mountain, and when he had sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. And here we see the Spirit creating seven definite needs which drive us to our Lord and are then answered by him as we turn to him. Blessed are the poor in spirit, first of all, as the Spirit begins to stir upon us and we yield to him.

If we don't yield to him, nothing happens. We are aware of nothing. But as we begin to yield to the Spirit, we begin to become aware of how utterly empty and poverty-stricken we are in here.

See, one of the first signs of the moving of the Spirit of God on a man or woman is that they suddenly realize that they have nothing. You know, so often we're walking around through the world and we really think we have it together, and we truly believe we have the answer, until the Spirit starts to move on us, and then we become poor in spirit. And as we reach out to God, he then satisfies us with his kingdom.

He can't possibly give the kingdom of God to anybody but the man or the woman who is empty, hollow, thirsty, yearning for him. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Another sign of the moving of the Spirit is that we begin to discover that as we look at ourselves and as we look at the world around us, there is nothing out there or in here that would cause us not to mourn.

In us we see sin, and in the world around us we see every form of hate and deception, and all the things that we looked to for comfort prior in our lives no longer satisfy us. And we cry out to God for comfort, and we begin to experience it. One of the signs of the moving of the Spirit of God on the church is that it begins truly to mourn.

Not profitable tears to impress each other, but a mourning before the Lord, which may or may not show up actually as tears. And when the Spirit moves us to tears, don't be afraid. So there are people who won't even come because they break down every time they come.

Go and break down. Praise God for that. It's a gift from God.

And as we begin to truly mourn for what we see first of all in here, God begins to comfort us with the comfort of his Spirit. Blessed are the meek. The meek are the ones who now by the Spirit's grace begin to realize that they don't have the answers, and they're utterly in need of divine guidance.

Instead of the grandiose programs that we fabricate in our minds and call them God's program, and then ask him to bless them, and try to make everybody conform to it, suddenly this is all gone. And we realize what a death that is, and how utterly helpless we are. God, I don't know which way to go.

Show me. Show me how this applies in my life. And it is now no longer me trying to make you do what I think you should do, but each of us is seeking from God.

Lord, show me the way. Lord, show me the way. Another one of the indications of the moving of the Spirit of God on the body of Christ is that people are no longer so sure of themselves, and they become more and more desperate for God to show them the way.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. When this begins to happen by the Spirit's power, it's no longer, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, trusting in ourselves that we are righteous and despising others. And how subtly this is done, and how subtly we go about doing this constantly in our minds.

We look at this brother. We look at that sister. Oh, when are they going to wise up? When are they going to get as smart as I am? When are they going to learn the righteous ways of God by walking in my footsteps? And instead of this, we begin to hunger and thirst for the righteousness which comes from Jesus alone.

Lord, clothe me with that robe washed in your blood. Wash me in this. Wrap me up in your righteousness.

And this becomes an obsession with us. Lord, make us to have your righteousness. Blessed are the merciful.

Another evidence of the moving of the Spirit of God is when the people of God begin to yearn to live in the stream of mercy, and they open their eyes and begin to discover how unmerciful and hard and critical and ugly they have been, first of all, toward their wives and husbands and their children and their parents and their brothers and sisters and other fellowships and everybody else they can think of. And they begin to break with repentance for their mercilessness, and they cry out, oh God, show me the way of mercy. Show me the way of mercy.

And they begin to be so sick and tired of this hard heart in themselves that they just reach out and groan in the Spirit for God to clothe them in the Spirit of true mercy. And as they begin to practice this, God satisfies them with his own mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart.

The pure in heart of those who by the Spirit's grace begin now to narrow down all their desires to one burning passion, that I might know God and worship him and love him and adore him and praise him and that nothing satisfies me but God himself. And all those things before that I sought to fill the emptiness in me no longer do it. My hunger and my thirst is for God, just God.

And God begins to answer that need created by the Spirit in my heart by causing his face to shine upon me. And he satisfies me by causing that light. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

And finally, blessed are the peacemakers. We finally get to the place where we're so tired of fighting flesh and blood, so weary, you know, trying to win these petty battles. And if Lord deliver me from being a sower of discord and enable me to only handle the sword where it really must come down between the evil and the good, you know, and unless I'm made a peacemaker, I'll never be able to bring the sword where it needs to come.

And I'll always be fighting the wrong battle. I'll be fighting flesh and blood, not principalities in power. And only when I begin to get closer to peace and I begin to yearn for peace instead of war, I long for peace that has come from God.

And how often the body of Christ is absolutely torn apart because we're not peacemakers. You know, we give the front of a peacemaker, and as soon as, you know, the people are gone, we're out there sowing some more division. But when the Spirit of God moves, we repent of this, and we begin to move in his peace, and he gives us his peace.

Now, we've said so many times here that if we're going to follow Jesus, this means we're going to carry a cross, and we're going to labor, we're going to minister to the ungrateful, and we're going to, you know, be moving against the tide all the time. And this is all true, but we also need to know that if we follow Jesus, we are going to be living now God-satisfied lives. We're going to be walking before God with a needy heart, all the time a needy heart, and God is going to answer the need continuously by his Spirit's grace, satisfying that need, filling it so that it begins to well up in us and spills out and blesses those around us.

He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. May we be among them. Lord, how much we've been trying to do out of soulish energies and flesh strength, and how much that we have touched has turned to death because of it.

Lord, we desire that you should fill the emptiness of our hearts and of our lives, that we may be sons and daughters of light and not of darkness, and that the things that we touch and the people to whom we go will be touched by your hand of light and not by death. Bring us to the place, Lord God, where we confess daily that our trucks are empty, that we may be filled by only that bread which is living bread, and by only that water which is living water, and by nothing else. We ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen.