AN APPETITE FOR CHANGE

I haven't written in awhile, but today has been one of those days when the Lord has been speaking to me this whole day, and it helps me to put it in writing.

My heart has been burdened with the need for revival, so let me share with all of you what I have been learning. The word Revive means to bring back to life or consciousness, to restore, or to give new health, strength or spirit to.

Psalm 85:6 Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?

Revival begins with a hunger after God, a hunger for His righteousness, a hunger for His word, a hunger for prayer and His presence. Before we were saved we had an appetite or hunger for the things that would satisfy our bodies and souls. A hunger like Esau had for food to fill his empty belly a hunger he was willing to sell his birthright for. Then in the day of Jesus the rich young ruler, had a hunger for possessions he desired to fill his belly up with the riches of the world, then in the early church we see that Ananias and his wife Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit because they had a hunger for recognition, then we go on to see the sorcerer desired to buy the power of the Holy Spirit because he had a hunger for power. Our flesh is always saying "feed me" with things that satisfy our flesh. But our spirit is saying "feed me" with the things that satisfy my spirit.

As we dig deeper into God's word, as we go deeper in prayer and worship, our spirit man will begin to be filled with the things of God and not the things of self and we will find ourselves growing in the Lord. But the flesh is warring against our spirit because our flesh desires for its appetites to be fed, so we find ourselves surrendering more to the Father's will and resisting the appetites of the flesh. Unfortunately, too often Christians don't resist the appetites of the flesh and will fall into the trap of the enemy, his temptation to rely on the wrong source of food. Then we find ourselves in need of revival.

The Holy Spirit will begin to bring a strong hunger for the things of God, this hunger will cause us to press in and press through in prayer. Yet, along with this hunger will come an all out involvement in spiritual warfare and a burden for prayer.

Psalm 27:8 When You said, Seek My face. My heart said to You, Your face, LORD, I will seek.

The other day someone spoke this word "You have no need to speak to the mountain, because you are going to climb to the top". Many will immediately think of the scripture that says if we have the faith of a mustard seed we can say speak to the mountain and it will be moved into the sea. But that is not what this word is saying, because the Holy Spirit began to bring back scriptures and previous messages from my pastors. One of which was titled "The Climb" in this message it was about Caleb when they entered the promise land, he said "give me the mountain". In this message we were told that God was calling us to higher ground. In another message we were told how hard the climb would be and all the obstacles that would be in our way as we climbed but it would be worth the climb when we reached the top. Too many of us, get weary and give up, we think we will never be able to reach the top and we become to weary to battle the warfare that is attacking us.

Galatians 6:9 And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

In order to answer the calling of God to move to higher ground, we must change our appetites, here lies the secret of revival. In order to be like Caleb we have to take the mountain by force, and when the lies of the enemy attacks our strength, our tenacity we just keep moving forward and upward one step at a time, because we are growing and maturing in the Lord and His kingdom, His righteousness will be what we hunger for and our fleshly appetites will become less and less.

Praise God!! If all who reads this begins to change their appetites, we will see revival break out everywhere within the body of Christ. Jesus said the world will know we are His disciples by our love for one another. Is the church showing the world love for each other, if we cannot love the brethren how can we love the lost? Change our appetite and hunger and thirst after His righteousness and allow the love of Jesus Christ within us to come through us as we love ALL.

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