Hungry for Healing We need to be hungry for healing. That is true even if we are currently seeing significant amounts of healing when we pray. Bill Johnson says that one of the most challenging parts of the Christian life is to be both full and hungry at the same time. It sounds like a contradiction, but it really isn’t. Hunger is usually a sign of both natural health and spiritual health. The absence of hunger is a symptom (both in the natural and the spiritual) that we should be concerned about. Parents would be concerned for a child which had lost its appetite, its desire to eat. Spiritually, when you live in an environment of blessing, one of the things that is required is that you maintain a sense of hunger. To do that requires humility. Hunger is an evidence of humility. Hunger says “I am in need”. Maturity in the Kingdom is maintained through that posture of hunger. In the natural you get hungry by not eating. However in the Kingdom you get hungry by eating. Bill Johnson has tried this for years. He knows that there are certain areas that he needs to be motivated about and hungry with regard to. So what he does is that he exposes himself to the testimonies, the experiences, the writings, and the songs of the particular theme that he is in need of. When he exposes himself to those truths, he discovers that he develops a voracious appetite that he didn’t have a day earlier. Hunger is a place of humility which keeps us in a place of dependency. The richness of who God made us to be is discovered in passion, in hunger, and in pursuing after Him. But when we get filled with what God is saying and promising and doing, we still have this strange requirement to maintain hunger. And if we don’t maintain hunger then we will live off the interest of yesterday’s investment and we no longer get put into the place where we become a transforming influence in society because God has reserved transforming influence for the hungry. When we eat we get hungry, and Bill explains that his goal as a teacher is to make people hungry. Bill suggests that some of us simply need to sit down at a table and make a choice to eat – and then watch what God does with this gift called hunger. That is his perspective - hunger is a gift God gives. This is simply an expression of what Matt 5;3 means when it says “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Being poor in spirit means you are in a place of dependency. It is one of the most challenging things : being in a place of abundance, but realising you are in a constant place of need. King David, for example, was a person who learned how to be full and yet to remain hungry. Despite being one of the richest kings on the planet in his day, David prayed : “As for me, I am poor and needy” (Ps 40;17). He was in a place not where he was denying the goodness of God manifested all around him, but rather was relying on the goodness of God. He stayed in a place of dependency even though he could bring about almost every answer that he would want. Did he want a victory against a particular nation ? He had an army strong enough to accomplish it. Regardless of how much he had, he remained poor and needy. He remained in a place of absolute dependency on God, despite being in a place of abundance. Our goal should therefore be to come into a place of abundance in terms of our heart’s desire, and yet still remain hungry. Hunger illustrates humility. Luke 1; 53 says “He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty handed.” This does not show God’s distaste for the prosperous. No, it demonstrates God’s distaste for those who have become satisfied with what they have and have not remained humble and hungry. Lessons we can learn : 1. We can get hungry for healing by listening to sermons on the subject and by reading accounts of when and how God has healed in the past. God doesnt have favourites (Acts 10;34) and he doesnt change (James 1;17 and Heb 13;8) so, if He does it elsewhere, why not in your church ? 2. Hunger is a gift. We need to have a hunger for an increase of Kingdom healing. Bill Johnson’s talk “The gift of hunger” is available at https://m.youtube/watch?v=AajV5CyjNK0
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 05:59:49 +0000