FEED THE BODY BUT STARVE THE SOUL?
“My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)
Jesus knew the hunger and thirst of men and women. The heart of every person in the world was created with a hunger for God. Unsaved people have ambitions. They hunger and thirst for happiness but they search for it in the wrong places.
It’s sad to see people attempting to meet their hunger and thirst with the wrong things. They need fulfilment and meaning in life but seek to fill themselves with worldly pleasures, possessions, power, and praise.
The prodigal son thought pleasure, possessions, and popularity would fulfil his needs. But his soul was still hungry and he finally had the sense to say to himself, “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!” (Luke 15:17). He returned to his father’s house and was given a feast (a picture of salvation).
The world’s ‘food’ of riotous living tries to meet the soul’s hunger with the pleasures of sin but send it away starving. Those who respond to the Spirit of God come running to the Father and are given a feast that fills the hungry soul.
As we study Matthew 5:6 you need to ask yourself, What am I hungry for? Do I seek power, praise, possessions, or pleasure? Am I feeding myself on the husks that swine eat (Luke 15:16)? Am I like the dog who licks his vomit or the pig that wallows in mire (2 Pet. 2:22)? Or am I feeding at the real source of happiness?
The answer you give will indicate whether you are in Christ’s kingdom or not.
– John MacArthur(adapted)