Hungry for God or guilty? • Deshen Daily

As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. (Ps. 42:1 NLT)

Being hungry for God is one of the signs of a spirit that is alive, on fire and in a healthy relationship with God. Hunger is good, and it is put into our spirits by God Himself. The absence of hunger for spiritual things and for God is a sign that soul is ice-cold in the things of God, or slowly becoming spiritually dead.

Your Christian life and walk with God can slowly move from a relationship with the Father to mere religion with boring Christian routines. As believers, we understand we have to read the Bible, pray, go to church, and be engaged in the “work of God”. These things can be either out of a relationship with God, or we might be doing them “because Christians are supposed to do them”. This is Christian religion, where a believer is involved in the routines of Christianity without the life of it. One of the telltale signs of Christian religion is that failure to do those things result in guilt for missing to do what you are supposed to do. None of us feels guilty when we forget to take breakfast. When we do forget to eat, we do not feel guilty, but hungry, because food is a requirement for our wellbeing. When a believer in a healthy relationship with God misses time with God, Bible study, a church service, etc, he or she does not feel guilty but hungry for God’s presence. Because these things are not done to prove anything to God but have become an integral part of their communion with God.

Beware and guard against slowly slipping into Christian religion without noticing. Many older Christians end up rolling with the remnants of their past Christian lives with almost a dead relationship with God, though actively “doing the things Christians do”. Keep a healthy relationship with God at all times. God did not call us to come and “do these things”. He called us first to Himself. The things we do as Christians are secondary and a follow up of our relationship with him.

MEDITATE

The Word in your mind and mouth (1 Tim 4:15; Josh 1: 8)

Think on these things-are you hungry or guilty?

PRAY

Water the Seed (word) to grow. Invite the Spirit’s strength! (Isa 32:15; Zach 4:6)

Ask the Lord to rekindle the fire in your spirit and a hunger for him if you have lost your passion.

APPLY THE WORD TODAY!

Your door to a blessed life today is doing God’s Word. Refuse to be a hearer or reader only! (James 1:22-26)

Do not kill spiritual hunger in you. It is a sign of a healthy spirit longing for God. Encourage it to grow as you seek to allow God quench your hunger and thirst with His Word and His Presence.

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Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the Lord your God. And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the Lord which sanctify you. (Leviticus 20:7–8, KJV)

Jehovah Mekaddishkem showing washing gloves, cleaning fluid and sponge

As the Great I AM that I AM, God revealed Himself as the Lord who sanctifies His people in the Old Covenant—Jehovah Mekaddishkem. But this was only a shadow of something greater that was coming in the New Testament.

Jehovah Mekaddishkem is the English transliteration of the Hebrew words for “I am the Lord which sanctify you” ( “mekaddish” = sanctify, “kem” = you). Divine names and titles in the Old Testament often reveal an aspect of God in relation to His people.

There are three keywords that underlie the meaning of sanctification: “wash,” “consecrate,” and “separate.” Sanctification essentially means to make something holy. Sinlessness is a core aspect of holiness, but there is more to holiness than sinlessness. It is the very nature of God. However, when used in reference to us humans, it means to be cleaned from sin, set apart for God, and consecrated to Him.

In the passage above, God tells the people first to sanctify themselves and then reveals He is the One who sanctifies them. Thus, He gives us the two sides of sanctification—the God side and the human side. There’s something God does and something His people do for their sanctification.

This truth was only a shadow in the Old Testament. It is in Christ that we see God fully revealed as Jehovah Mekaddishkem to His people through the sanctifying work on the cross. In speaking to the Corinthians, Paul revealed,

“And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:11, KJV)

This is Jehovah Mekaddishkem fulfilled in Christ: We were washed and sanctified. Note that these are in past tense, describing something God has already done. The day you received Christ, you received the bath of your life, a heavenly bath by the Spirit of God that removed every stain of sin through the precious blood of Christ. And as you continue to live on earth, the Spirit continues to sanctify you daily.

Following the sanctifying work He has already done in us, He commands us,

“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:” (1 Thessalonians 4:3, KJV)

Now that you are clean, washed, and sanctified, He tells us to put that sanctification to work outwardly. Paul explicit states it is what God wants—His will. He gives us a very specific example of sanctification here: abstain from sexual immorality. Few things defile us, like sexual impurity. But sanctification certainly includes more than abstaining from fornication or adultery. As above, it includes living a consecrated and separated life to God daily in the way we talk, act, think, feel, and handle our bodies.

He is Jehovah Mekaddishkem, the God who has Sanctified you in Christ and continues to sanctify you every day.

Meditate

Is our sanctification completed, ongoing, or both?

Apply the Word

This is the crucial part of this devotional. Until you receive the truth that God has already sanctified you by His Spirit, you will not be empowered to be sanctified practically. Put God’s sanctification power to work in your life daily by faith in the finished work of Christ.