ARE YOU HUNGRY AND DESPERATE FOR GOD?

As many of my readers know I became a Christian in The Salvation Army as a boy of 10. When I became a teenager I would attend the annual State Youth Conference. In the mid to late 1950’s I met a great bunch of young people from a regional country town at the Conference one year, I was so impressed by them, I quit my job and moved to that town and got involved in The Salvation Army there.

Sometime after I got settled in two spinster school teacher ladies started to attend the corps, in hindsight I would have to say they were extreme or at least somewhat unusual, but I felt attracted to them because of their love for the Lord. They met at 6.30 am every morning for an hour’s prayer and invited me to meet with them which I did. Sometime later they gave me a book written by a William Booth-Clibborn entitled “The Baptism of the Holy Spirit”. I would have the read the Book of Acts before, but would have just seen the early chapters as an historic event that had no relevance to me. Booth-Clibborn was the grandson of the founder of The Salvation Army so I was open to read it, and I discovered God was still filling people with the Holy Spirit and introducing them to the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. I told the spinster ladies I was interested, their response to me was this:

WHEN YOU GET HUNGRY AND DESPERATE JOHN YOU WILL RECEIVE.

So I began to seek and pray that I would be filled with the Holy Spirit. My mother’s health was not good so I returned to Melbourne and by my bedside one night at home I was filled with the Holy Spirit, an experience that changed my life, and changed the direction I had planned to go,

It was the statement they made to me I want to highlight today, and to spotlight Genesis 32:24 NKJV Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Most commentators believe that “man” was none other than a manifestation of God. Which we call a Theophany or a Christophany.

The “man” asked Jacob his name, and went ahead and changed it to Israel, verse 28 tells us Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

Jacob called the place where he wrestled Peniel, we read this is verse 30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”

I am not suggesting I wrestled with God like Jacob but I did get HUNGRY AND DESPERATE. Sadly, I cannot say I have always been that way, and like Paul in 1 Cor. 9:24-27 NKJV I need to be more disciplined. “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified”.

I am asking myself today (and you)

Are you hungry for God?

Are you desperate to enter into a deeper relationship with God?

We know the Lord wants to helps us, so let us pray MAKE ME HUNGRY AND DESPERATE FOR YOU, help me to discipline my body, and PUSH INTO YOU Amen.