03-21-24-ENG.

Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

2 Timothy 2:22
Though you may go to church or you even do religious activities, if you are not hungering and thirsting after what your soul truly needs, you will starve spiritually. In order for your soul to flourish, it requires a consistent feeding of righteousness. The soul is nourished when you align yourself in accordance with the truth of God. For example, if you were to go fill up your car with diesel fuel when it requires unleaded, you would be in for a rough ride, and you wouldn’t get very far. It doesn’t matter how new your car is. It doesn’t matter how much money you put into your car. If you put diesel fuel in an unleaded car’s motor, you’ll ruin it. This is because your car’s motor is not designed to receive diesel. It won’t even matter how much diesel you put in it or if your gas tank registers as completely full. You will simply sputter down the road until you stop.

You have to put unleaded fuel into a car designed to run on unleaded fuel. That’s not too difficult for most of us to comprehend. And yet many of us are confused when we put all of the world’s junk and all the culture’s chaotic stuff into our souls and then wonder why we sputter through life and don’t get very far. We can’t make it on the world’s fuel because our divine nature—that which empowers our spiritual being—requires righteousness based on truth. We run smoothly when we align our thoughts, decisions, and words under the overarching rule of God in our life. Anything else will cause problems under the hood of our souls. We can go to church on Sunday or even have daily devotions, but if we’re not obeying God, it won’t mean much.

Are you listening to Him when it comes to your sex life? Your finances? Your temper? From time to time when I am scheduled to preach, I’ll look out into the audience during a song or some other part of the service. Without fail, I’ll see a mother with a baby in her arms. Now, particularly if the baby is young, she may sit toward the back so that she can get to one of the cry rooms if the baby starts fussing. But normally the mother will try to console the baby with a pacifier first. The problems come when the baby realizes that the pacifier is fake food. It’s a piece of rubber designed to trick a kid. Despite how much the baby sucks on the pacifier, the baby won’t be receiving any nourishment at all. After a while, the baby will let out a loud cry because the baby knows he or she has been fooled. If the baby could talk, you might hear something like, “Mama, you’re playing with my emotions!” That’s when the mom will get up and go to the cry room to feed the baby.

A baby can only be pacified with fake food for so long. If the hunger is strong enough, the entire congregation will hear the cry. Many people come to church on Sunday and are satisfied with a pacifier-sermon or a pacifier-song because it makes them feel good for a moment. But not too long after the sermon or the song, they will discover they are still hungry. A pacifier is not designed to be the sole source of nourishment. The feeding of the soul demands a consistency in righteousness, or it will go hungry. And when your soul is hungry, your whole life cries out in chaos.

When we have enough souls that are hungry or starving, our whole culture cries out in chaos. Jesus said that you are blessed when you hunger and thirst for the only thing that the soul can digest. When you seek to align your life in accordance with the truth of God, you will be feeding yourself with righteousness. Nothing else you give the soul will satisfy it. No matter how often you try to feed your soul with other things, it will never be satisfied with anything other than what it was designed to consume: righteousness. 

Reaction:
What are some forms of the world’s “pacifiers”? Do you ever feel like you are using a pacifier rather than pursuing the true nourishment of God’s Word? If yes, what is often the result? What are some hesitations you have toward spending more consistent time in God’s Word? 

Prayer:
Jesus, help me mature spiritually by pursuing You and Your righteousness on a more regular basis. Help me consume the word of Your truth to such a degree that it becomes second nature to my own thoughts and emotions. In Your name I pray, amen.