Are you Hungry? (mindless fool or mindful righteousness)

Hunger is a state of longing to be filled.  This is a basic drive for all human beings.  If you have ever tried fasting you quickly become aware of how intense this drive can be.

Jesus said:

Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed, for they will be filled. Matt 5:6 (HCSB)

Continuing on the subject of filling and wholeness I want to post a question to you.  What is it that you are Spiritually Hungry for?  This may be a difficult post for some.  It was not the direction that I had anticipated, but God has proven to me over and over that He desires for us to take things to the next level of awareness and today this is what He is showing me.

After a good meal there is a general sense of well-being that come over you.  I the expression is often, "that was a good meal."  That feeling of well being is the result of a desire fulfilled.  We can have that feeling about many things, but according to Christ to be filled spiritually we need to desire righteousness.  Being filled with righteousness will lead to a sense of well-being that is greater than that felt after a good meal. 

There is a difference between filled with self-righteousness and filled with God's righteousness.  Self-righteousness is often only concerned about outward appearances.  This is one thing that Christ was so adamantly against.  Why?  I believe that self-righteousness keeps us trapped.  Let me describe what I mean.  If a person believes they are righteous (but in reality are just self-righteous) then this becomes the core of their identity.  Every action they take is built on confirming their own righteousness.  Jesus gave this example:

The Pharisee took his stand and was praying like this: 'God, I thank You that I'm not like other people -greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.' Luke 18:11-12 (HCSB)

The Pharisee's very identity was based on the fact that he was not unrighteous.  His self-righteousness blinded him to the fact that he was not perfect (old-world sense).  He was still missing something.  As long as someone continues in self-righteous acts they will continue to be unmindful of who they really are.  Their awareness is only on what they do which serves to distract them from what God is trying to show them.  The self-righteous see that no change is needed. 

There is a concept in psychology about the change process called "precontemplation."   Those that are in this stage are not even aware that they have a problem.  This lack of awareness can be either through ignorance or through denial.  The Pharisees were the most learned spiritual leaders of Jesus' time.  They could not claim ignorance.   That would leave denial as the only option.  So they denied the need of a savior.  That is why Jesus confronted them.  Interestingly in the protocol for counselors working with a person in precontemplation is to get the person to reconsider their opinions, get them to be more self-aware, and point out the consequences of them continuing down the path they are headed.  This is exactly what Jesus was doing with the Pharisees of His day.  Hmmm... Jesus used motivational interviewing (maybe a future post). 

Self-righteousness ends in external hyper-religious unmindfulness (now there is a mouthful).  The cure is to humble yourself before God and allow His Holy Spirit to work on your heart and show you how to be filled.  Self-righteousness is starvation while feeling (or believing you are) full.  Now that is unmindful.

At the other end of the spectrum is casting off righteousness (the fool).  There are people that would just rather that there were not morals to follow.  Their ideal world would be one that suits their pleasure and engaged in the pleasuring of others so that we could have a utopia of pleasure.  Unfortunately such a place does not exist.  The result of such a pursuit is the darkening of one's mind. 

For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools  and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. Romans 1:21-23 (HCSB)

Note that God has made Himself evident!  But they were not mindful of it and they did not seek His Righteousness so their thinking became nonsense (according to the wisdom of God).  Mindlessness begets mindlessness.  Foolishness begets foolishness.  As this process continues God gives them over to the darkness of their mind (Romans 1:26).  They become completely unaware of God (The fool says in his heart, "God does not exist. ;Psalms 14:1) or His righteousness.   Being a fool is starving while being unaware that the thing you are throwing away is food.  That last sentence should adequately illustrate the the lack of mindfulness in this state.   

Now having established what mindless hungering looks like let's look at what mindful hungering looks like? 

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes to heaven but kept striking his chest and saying, 'God, turn Your wrath from me -a sinner!'  I tell you, this one went down to his house justified rather than the other; because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.  Luke 18:13-14 (HCSB)

First, you have to be aware of yourself as God sees you.  That may seem like a difficult thing.  It is impossible apart from the Holy Spirit.   The good news is that God's Holy Spirit's ministry is to do just that.

When He comes, He will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment... John 16:8 (HCSB)

Notice the tax collector's awareness: "God" (righteousness), "Turn your wrath" (judgment), "a sinner" (sin).  This awareness is the conviction of the Holy Spirit.  You have to be open to this process.  If you are not open then you risk quenching the Holy Spirit.  The root of this awareness is based in fear.  This is unpopular in our day and age.  We want to focus on Love of God (no doubt He is love), but the "fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Prov 1:7)", "fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov 9:10)", "fear of the Lord prolongs life (Prov 10:27)", "In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence (Prov 14:26)", "fear of the Lord is a fountain of life (Prov 14:27)", and "one turns from evil by the fear of the Lord. (Prov 16:6)"

Notice that fear of the Lord leads to escape mindless hungering.  For the self-righteous there is in a moment an awareness of the righteousness of God and how "all our righteous acts are like a polluted  garment (Literally menstrual cloth; Isaiah 64:6)."  That kills the desire for self-righteousness and leads one into hungering for God's Righteousness.  For the fool there is an awareness of certain judgment if his/her state does not change (ie leading to repentance). 

Our tax collector had "fear of the Lord" and confessing his sin to God "went down to his house justified."  You see by cultivating a healthy fear (reverence, awe, respect) of God our attention is drawn to His Righteousness and we begin to hunger and thirst for it. 

Mindful hungering begins with fearful awareness of self as God sees you, reverent awareness of the righteousness of God, respectful awareness of God's judgment, leading to humbling and repentance, which then leads to hungering and thirsting for righteousness.  In short, "God, turn Your wrath from me -a sinner!"  With this in place then the promise, "for they will be filled" can be fulfilled in your life. 

Lord we long to be mindful of sin, righteousness, and judgment.  We hunger and thirst for your righteousness.  Put the fear of the Lord in our hearts that we might not stray from Your path.  Envelop us with Your Love as You fill us with the righteousness of God.  Lead us into mindful awareness of You.  In Jesus Name AMEN

The usefulness of Happiness:

Image via Wikipedia

This is another sermon I preached a little over a year ago. It is a follow up to the usefulness of sorrow.

God has a mysterious way about Him. Amen. I cannot quite tell you why, but He has put it on my heart to preach about Happiness. It is unusual, because the last few weeks for me have been some of the most stressful that I have had. Maybe you could relate to this. I have over extended myself and have more to do than it humanly possible in one day. I have been grumpy, sorry babe, worried, stressed, depressed, and frustrated. My stress level has been so high that I have forgot about important things that I need to do. I would consider you fortunate to even have me here this evening, because the way that the last few weeks have gone it would not have surprised me to forget about this evening. Yet through it all God has put it on my heart to share with you about Happiness. I am certain that He wants to share this message with me as much as he does with you.

For those of you who were present the last time I was here you will recall I shared on the “usefulness of sorrow.” We contrasted Godly and worldly sorrow. We learned that worldly sorrow leads to death. That is contracted with Godly Sorrow leading to repentance and life. This evening I would like to share the “usefulness of happiness.”
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, because they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the gentle, because they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, because they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, because they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, because they will be called sons of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. 11 “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of Me. 12 Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matt 5:3-12 (HCSB)
Jesus was establishing the kingdom life. He shares that there is blessing, gladness, and rejoicing. Often in this life it is so easy to get caught up in the circumstances of life that we are robbed of the Joy that God wants us to have. I am guilty of this as I have just shared with you. In Matt 6:25 Jesus asks a very hard question, 25 “This is why I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing?

It is so easy to become so consumed with the worries of this life that we lose sight of the fact that God desires for us to have a Joyful happy life. What blessing we miss when we lose sight of this great truth.

There are other situations that rob us of our happiness. When we pursue happiness according to the world we trade the abundant happiness that God offers for hollow happiness. There are two examples given to us in the scriptures that I would like to share with you.
16 Then He told them a parable: “A rich man’s land was very productive. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What should I do, since I don’t have anywhere to store my crops? 18 I will do this,’ he said. ‘I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones and store all my grain and my goods there. 19 Then I’ll say to myself, “You have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.” ’ 20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared—whose will they be?’ Luke 12:16-20 (HCSB)

This man’s life was successful. By the worlds standards he was rich and productive. His life was a huge success. Why did Jesus call him a “fool?” This man had a focus on building a bigger worldly kingdom for himself. He was prepared to build bigger barns, store his wealth, and live the good life. Yet he was not aware that his life was going to be over that night. Think about this man no doubt had spent many hours amassing such a wealth and tonight his life was going to be taken from him.

We can be guilty of building worldly kingdoms for ourselves. We may never be as wealthy as this man, but when we seek after material gain, when we look for happiness in the world, when we pursue the “good life,” then we are not really any different than this man. This is not a proclamation against building wealth or being rich. However, a person that is rich according to the world, but bankrupt in the heavenly kingdom is a fool. Let’s look at another example:

19 “There was a rich man who would dress in purple and fine linen, feasting lavishly every day. 20 But a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, was left at his gate. 21 He longed to be filled with what fell from the rich man’s table, but instead the dogs would come and lick his sores.
This man like the other example had the “good life.” He had the finest clothes and dined on the finest food. If he were alive today no doubt he would have had a fancy sports car and a fancy luxury car, boats, and a nice house. This is contrasted with Lazarus who had nothing. He sat at the Gate every day longing for someone to give him food.

The fact that Lazarus is sitting at the gate leads me to believe that the rich man would have seen him every day when he walked in and out. He passed him seeing his broken down condition and did what? Nothing. He was more interested in fine clothes and fine food than he was in helping others. Both of the men die. Lazarus because of his faith and trust in God is taken to Abraham’s side. The rich man was taken to a place called Hades. This is a place of holding for those that are separated from God. In Luke 6:31 it says, “But he told him, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.’ ” This is a very clear reference of the New and Old covenants of God. You see this man had the opportunity to come to God and apparently had access to or heard the Old Testament law and prophets. He heard God’s word and yet failed to respond. The evidence is in his lack of compassion for the situation of Lazarus. When we hear the Word of God and fail to act we become like this man and fail to enter into God’s rest and happiness.

Perhaps you are sitting here this evening and you have never heard or understood that Jesus God’s son died so that you can enter into God’s rest. If that describes you then I ask that you do not leave tonight before asking God to come into your life and share that decision with someone else before you leave.

One more thing before moving on: The Bible is filled with examples of men who where wealthy and righteous. I would like to share a few with you: Abraham was very wealthy, Noah must have had some wealth to take on such a huge building project on his own, Jacob was wealthy and became the father of all the Israelite tribes. Job was wealthy and was consider righteous by God. Boaz from the story of Ruth was wealthy and because of his faithfulness God used him in his redemption plan for all of humanity. My point is this. It is not money that is the problem. It is the love of money that leads people astray. Let’s face it we live in a time where the main message being sold to us is that happiness comes from building up wealth. If you only build wealth and are not rich toward God then you are bankrupt. If you are dirt poor and are not rich toward God, you are still bankrupt. So how do we become rich and happy according to the kingdom of God? Let’s turn back to Matthew 5.

I am going to go through these in very quick order. The reality is that there is a lifetime of blessing in these verses and the truth that they contain must be discovered and rediscovered over the course of our lifetime.
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
Happiness in God’s kingdom begins with “poverty of spirit” we must think less about ourselves than others. We must decrease that God may increase. We have to humble ourselves before God. If we do then the “kingdom of heaven” is ours according to Jesus.
4 Blessed are those who mourn, because they will be comforted.
Mourning is blessed. That may be a hard one to swallow. Interestingly I had to take a nap when I got to this point. What can possibly be blessed about mourning? And what does mourning have to do with happiness. Typically we think of mourning about the loss of a loved one. I believe that we can all agree that there is time of extreme loss that God has comforted us. His presence has uplifted our spirit in a time that we were down. Could you imagine how gloomy life would be if he never gave that comfort. It would be robed of joy and happiness.

We can also mourn bad things that have happened or bad things that we have done. When we mourn over the circumstances of other people it draws us into a more intimate relationship with them. Those close relationships can be a blessing. We also can be come a ministry of comfort, that is to say that God can use us to comfort others. When we mourn over the sin of others we encourage them to repentance. We also watch out for ourselves so that we do not fall into the same sin. James chapter four teaches us to mourn over our own sin, which leads to restoration with God. He is saying that we should be grieved over our sin. This is an important step to spiritual freedom.

Let me just say spiritual freedom is a blessing and happiness. So mourning leads to happiness.

Blessed are the gentle, because they will inherit the earth.
Jesus is a perfect power through gentleness. Through his submission he conquered sin and death!
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they will be filled.
This verse is very important. The greatest path of fulfillment and happiness lies in the hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Here is the great truth in that verse. If I will, He will; If you will, he will; If we will, He will.

A Slice of Infinity: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries;

Not long ago I was in a store standing in a line that snaked its way through rows of candy. A young couple waited behind me with their daughter. The little girl seized upon some candy and asked excitedly, “Ooh, can I get this?” She was holding a tube of goo that had been colored fluorescent green. The candy makers had thoughtfully designed it so that kids could squeeze the goo right into their mouths. I have to say it was one of the least appetizing things I have ever seen. Her mother quickly responded, “No way, all that is, is sugar.”

There was a time that the sugar in a tube would have appealed to me. As children we quickly learn that sugar satisfies an appetite immediately and provides a burst of energy, not to mention a pleasing taste. We learn to recognize that sweet things are brightly colored and cleverly packaged. When we are hungry, we want whatever will satisfy us right now. It may confuse a child to hear, “That will spoil your appetite for supper,” because isn't the point of eating to satisfy your appetite? Why not just eat candy and forego supper? Anyone who has done this knows that the quick satisfaction of candy wears off just as quickly, leaving one even more hungry and weak. It is only after we learn the more lasting satisfaction of a healthy meal that we may find candy less appetizing.

But children in a checkout line rarely want to hear this and are likely to accuse their parents of being mean or stingy. I know it is tempting for us to accuse God of the same things when he denies us what we want.

It may be that there is something that you know — absolutely know — would bring you happiness. It may be hard to understand why God is denying you what you want. It may be that although God knows it would bring you a rush of happiness, he also knows the happiness it would bring is not the lasting kind. Ravi Zacharias has said, “The loneliest moment in life is when you have just experienced what you thought would deliver the ultimate, and it has let you down.” (1)

Sometimes God refuses to satisfy our hungers because if we live from sugar fix to sugar fix, we will never learn to hunger for food that satisfies. If a child is allowed to live off of candy, she will never learn to appreciate a steak dinner. That tube of goo would have been as sweet as the little girl expected it to be, but it would probably have left her sick to her stomach. If you are gazing longingly at something out of your reach, it may be that it would only spoil your appetite for the very best that God wants to offer you.i

Blessed are the merciful, because they will be shown mercy.
Recall the story of the rich man and Lazarus. In that story the rich man I said likely passed Lazarus as he sat at the city gate. This man missed the opportunity to minister to this man’s needs. When we see a need and fail to reach out to meet that ministry need then we miss the blessing God has for use. Whether it is because of business or lack of compassion we miss God plan for happiness.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart, because they will see God
“Give us clean hand, give us pure hearts, let us not kneel down before another.” We know that purity comes from the forgiveness that is in Jesus Christ. That pure heart is maintained through living a life that is honoring to God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers, because they will be called sons of God.
Do you want to pursue happiness in God’s kingdom? Then pursue peace with others. Happy are the Peace Makers.


Do you believe that we are in a spiritual battle? Well it is clear to me that we are locked in a battle of good versus evil. There is one thing that you can be certain of and that is if you start to pursue wealth and happiness in God’s kingdom you will be attacked. This list of blessings in God’s kingdom is followed by a dose of reality. Jesus says:
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. 11 “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of Me. 12 Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
I was talking with a friend once after we had just helped out another member of our church. He said “BJ I am not sure that I can keep ministering. Every time I do something good it seems as if there is someone there to kick my teeth in.” Well it does feel like that sometimes. I think that Jesus knew that if we started living for him then the world and the spiritual forces of darkness would try to lead us away. He does this by either by making us miserable in a worldly sense or drawing us in to sin in the disguise of happiness. Either way the result is the same lost fellowship with God and loss of true happiness that comes only from Christ. The cure: Focus on the prize. Someday those that follow Christ will be with him in heaven. We will receive a heavenly reward that is beyond anything we can possibly comprehend. It is better than anything that this world has to offer. And is worth every hardship that we face a hundred times over. When we reflect on the greatness of the reward that awaits us in heaven then we can maintain our joy, happiness, and blessing in the midst of any circumstance this life throws our way.

God’s 8-point plan for lasting happiness is simply this:

1. Poverty of spirit
2. Mourning over losses and evil or sin
3. Gentleness
4. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness
5. Mercy on those longing to meet our savior
6. Living a life of Purity
7. Pursuing peace with others
8. Enduring the spiritual attacks for the sake of the kingdom and the heavenly reward.


Are you living out this plan? If you are then press on for great is your reward in heaven. If not, why not? Are you ready for this life altering happiness that God has in store for you? Make the commitment to live out this life tonight and you will be blessed. Lets pray.