Hungry For God

Psalms 107:35-37

He turneth the wilderness into a standing water, And dry ground into watersprings. And there he maketh the hungry To dwell, that they may prepare a city for habitation; And sow the fields, and plant vineyards, Which may yield fruits of increase.

There in that dry ground, it is now flowing with springs of water. That is where God wants to place the hungry so they can prepare a city and enjoy the increase.

I’m excited about what God is doing. God has given me a hundred thoughts to put down into one subject. But He has helped me organize it all and I believe before you finish reading this, there is going to be an impartation of hunger for God like never before that is going to bring us to sacrifice. That sacrifice will bring us to do things we read about in the bible.

God wants to establish a hunger in us like never before because God knows hunger will drive a man to do things he never thought he’d do. 

And God wants us to do things for Him that we never thought we’d do.

Hunger caused Esau to sell his birthright. Hunger drove Joseph’s family to Egypt. Hunger caused the widowed woman to gather pots from neighbors for the Lord to fill with oil to provide food for her, her son, and Elijah. And how cool is this. Hunger caused Jesus to feed the thousands.

First off God is bringing a harvest to Hillsboro like we have never seen before. I don’t think this generation will pass away before we see a huge revival in this town. 

Did you know that there are developers planning on building a container port in Jefferson county? That’s going to bring many many people to this county for work. Something to think about. I just know, I feel deep down in my soul, revival is coming!

I said hunger caused Jesus to feed the thousands. In my scriptures, It says God provided springs of water in the dryland for the hungry. The hungry!

Then the hungry will prepare a city, sow the fields, plant vineyards and what? Feed the thousands! There will be an increase! The amplified version says will result in a great harvest! Why? Because of hunger!

Being hungry will pull you out of a dry season, will prepare you for the city of God; thy kingdom come! And will cause you to share the kingdom with others resulting in great revival!

I am very shy and backwards. Thinking about talking to strangers about Jesus or doing door knocking outreach terrifies me. It’s very uncomfortable to me. But since I have applied what I’m going to share tonight, God has given me desires to speak to strangers. I have a desire to go door knocking! “I’m an introvert made extrovert by the holy ghost” as Lee Stoneking always says. God will give you desires that relate to His kingdom when you get hungry.

Theres 3 things I feel God wants us to do this year. One is readjust our lifestyle, sacrifice, which is pulling us out of a dry season. Two is rest in the Lord which is preparing us for His kingdom. Then three is respond to His voice which will result in great revival. Next I will dig into these three things and explain them.

1.) Jesus adjusted Peter’s lifestyle.

When Jesus called Peter, he was a fisherman. He always fished at night in the shallows when there was more activity there. Then he brought in his nets in the morning and had them dry during the day so they could be strong and ready to be used the next night. But when Jesus called him, he called him in the morning when he was done fishing. He was pushing him out of his normal pattern. I’m sure Peter was tired and ready to go home when God changed his routine but God told him to cast his nets to the deep instead of the shallows because God knew the fish in the deep were more active during the day and God gave Peter a multitude in a moment. God knows angels move more at the break of day. So if you pray midday or night, God could be pushing you to pray in the morning. Just like God changed Peter’s routine to start in the morning than at night. There’s something about sacrificing your sleep and praying those morning prayers  which are the most powerful because that’s when angels collect the prayers and take them to God. God knows if you adjust your lifestyle in a sacrificial way, you’ll be more in alignment with His kingdom and His will. Now Peter can fish during the day and rest at night. Pattern has been interrupted and now he can focus on God in a better manner and rest in a better manner.

God wants to interrupt our routine. He wants us to get hungry and change some things. This is a year of adjustment.

We have to remove distractions which will push us out of our normal pattern.

When we get out of our normal pattern, we will be more alert and be able to respond to God’s voice.

2.) Resting in the Lord.

Believe it or not, readjusting some things will allow us to rest. It will also prepare us for “thy kingdom come” in our own heart. Right now is a shemitah year for Jerusalem. God told the Israelites that you will work 6 days and rest the 7th day. That 7th day is a sabbath, a day to rest. A day to focus on God, remove distractions, and remember Him. They were also to do this every 7 years. 6 years they would work the fields and the 7th year would be a time of rest for the land. There would be no work in the fields, no planting, no sowing, no harvest. A whole year of rest. A whole year of no distractions and focusing on God! A whole year of being more aware and alert of God and what He has accomplished and what He is doing. This is a change! This is a readjustment! And it brings rest.

Every time I read about the shemitah in the bible, I always thought, the people are going to be hungrier than ever that year! This is that year, a year for God’s people to be hungrier than ever because we are getting ready to go home!

There’s a preacher in Texas that a few of my friends and I follow on Facebook. His name is Jason Sciscoe in case you’d like to look him up. He’s very anointed! But he shared that he just had major eye surgery. While having that surgery, they did not put him to sleep. They needed him awake so they could give him instructions like look up, look down, look to the left, and so on. But he had to remain completely still, any extra movent could cause major complications. So he was awake, still, but alert and responding to their voice. Because of this surgery, he now has clear vision. Get where I’m going with this? 

It’s not a time to live for God willy nilly. Sometimes we try to force our way into God’s presence and put Him in a box and tell Him how we want Him to move and work in our life. We say “I’m going to do this for God and and because I do this, He is going to answer my prayer and He is going to do it this way” but that’s not how God works. He’s already working in our lives to work out His will. He wants us to relax, be still and know that He is God. We just need to relax, be still and be alert to His voice.

3.) Respond to His voice and He will give us clear vision.

2022 will be a year of resting in the Lord but resting is not sleeping. We are not sleeping. We are awake, alert, and responding to God’s voice.

God is always speaking. I speak to Jed hundreds if not thousands of times during the day. He needs my voice. He needs my correction and guidance. He needs my love and affirmation. Whether he hears me or not that’s another story but I am always speaking to him. God is doing the same. He is always speaking to us! He wants to speak to us! We just need to remove distractions to hear His voice. That preacher I mentioned had no distractions while on the surgery table and heard their voice and responded and received clear vision.

Bringing back the topic of the shmita year. I said they would be hungrier than ever that year and that’s this year. It’s time to get hungry spiritually and physically. It’s time to fast more this year than we have in the past. If you want to tune out distractions, fasting turns down the sounds of this world. It will allow you to rest and hear the voice of God. An empty belly makes the voice of God louder.

It’s not twisting the arm of God to forcefully get what you want but it is positioning you in alignment with God’s will to receive his favor.

In the old testament, the sacrifice was a sweet smell to God. When you sacrifice now, readjust your lifestyle, and fast, that sacrifice is a sweet smell to God and the smell lingers in his presence at His throne and its hard for Him to ignore you then. You are getting God’s attention. Now He will hear and you will hear. But when you hear, you have to respond. Sacrifice will cause you to hear the voice of God clearly. You will receive clear vision. But once you receive revelation, you are responsible for it. You are responsible to respond.

When you sacrifice, it will be hard. It is death to the flesh but life to the spirit.

Your flesh is enmity against God. It doesn’t care about your eternity because it’s not going with you there. It just wants to satisfy itself through overeating, binge watching TV, and hours of scrolling on social media.

When you sacrifice, don’t focus on how hard it will be because it will make it that much harder. But focus on the outcome the sacrifice will bring. If your spirit is hungry, you’re gonna have to starve your flesh along with it. 

Doing these things, adjusting our lifestyle, resting in God’s presence, and responding to His voice, will result in increase. Not only in the church but in our personal lives. 

Visitation and revival are on the way. There is revival coming not only globally but individually. 

Before God comes and there is a global visitation, God wants to visit His people. He wants to visit us in our homes. He wants to visit our families, our marriages, our friendships. He wants to visit the promises He gave us. He wants to release a floodgate of favor. We are going to feel joy again. We are going to have renewed passion for God. 

God wants us! He wants us so much. He wants us to want Him! Every good and perfect gift is from above. Everything good in our lives is from God. Even to those who do not live for God, God loves them so much He gave them everything good in their lives! God loves us so much and so passionately. He wants us to be hungry for Him. He wants to reveal things to us. He wants to speak to us. He wants to make our dry ground a spring of water.