Spiritual Hunger

What I want to talk to you guys about today is something that it's not

particularly profound, and yet it's and yet it's everything, and it's really I

guess maybe the hope is that we could ask for something together for us as

individuals. And I think you'll understand as we progress through this. But the

general idea is this, what's available in each of our relationships with God is

exponentially greater than anything any of us have experienced. Yet you can almost ask

yourself, am I am I satisfied in my relationship? Do I feel like

I've reached enough or a plateau or it's too hard? And there's any of

these places we find ourselves in, and one of the hardest things is living

in it, in the normal day to day of life, living in a

culture where Christianity often looks like quiet times and you know, if you're a

good Christian, quiet times and reading the Bible and maybe some devotionals, and

we tend to know so much of scripture that we easily easily lose the impact

of it. You know, if we hadn't read this, if we hadn't

read all the scriptures, if I was just knew Jesus only from my relationship

with him. At times, you know, instead of describing him as who

in the heavens is like you, it might be like you're better than Michael

Jordan, like you know, like I don't have this this big scale of

reality and engagement and connection that people like David in scripture had. He had

encountered the Lord in such profound ways. It changed him so much that he

said, really, the one thing I want is just to be in your

presence. I like of everything, and David had everything. He was probably

the wealthiest king on the earth at the time that he reigned. There was

he had everything. There's nothing, there's nothing not accessible to him. And

you know, even when he when he screwed up with Bathsheba and Nathan came

to him, one of the first things that God told Nathan to say was,

hey, I've I've given you David. I've given you everything that you

could have wanted, and if it wasn't enough, I would have given you

even more. This was the man that had everything, and this was the

heart of the God that he knew if it wasn't enough, I would have

given you even more. Yet what he wanted was to be with the Lord

and the hard thing sometimes about hearing that is that we've heard it a thousand

times, and sometimes we think that being with him is really just as simple

as open up the scripture and reading it. And I love the word and

it's critical. It's where it's we find him. We encounter him there.

But sometimes the things that we do just take over what is available and we

fill ourselves with knowledge, and it's good knowledge, but it's different than encounter.

That is like walking through a veil, because when you walk through a

veil, you're walking into a completely different space, and when you look all

around you, you don't see what was there before. You see an entirely

new thing. So when you have an encounter with the Lord, you step

into this new space, and if it's not a knowledge thing, it tends

to leave you in the mindset of I don't know what to do. I

don't know what to do with everything that I knew, because you're completely different

than what I thought. And I mean this in a really good way.

You step into this this world where you don't have words to explain what you're

encountering anymore. And I just want to say really clearly in communicating this kind

of the last thing I would want anybody to think, is that I think

I have this great high level whatever this what I'm what I'm trying to do

is again just maybe open a window or a door to like I'm I'm not.

Actually I don't think I am satisfied in Marley Smith Lord, and and

wow, there is so much more. And I don't want to just fill

myself up with knowledge or what I think is good. But I really want

to encounter you because what's available is like mind blowingly good, like the highest

joys we could ever imagine. Whatever your best joy is in your private,

intimate life of Him, there are joys that are greater than the greatest joy

you've ever known. This is this is a promise. I mean, it's

the truth. There is healing of things that you you don't believe could be

healed. There is there's He can shift the way that you view something in

your past in a moment so that that thing when you look back is totally

different. So it's not just about I want to be a good Christian,

which is great, and I want to do the right things. Those things

are great, but He's calling you in as a good father into encounter beyond

whatever your best encounter has been yet and whatever and you may have had,

and I hope you have had incredible encounters in your life. And if you

haven't, be encouraged that there is incredible encounter and connection and relationship available.

So either scenario, your best days with him are ahead. So whatever limits

we've put on our relationship with him, with whatever we think it's supposed to

look like to be a Christians, let's just with a heart ask if we

can't take those limits off, Ask you if the Holy Spirit wouldn't come in

into our own minds and thought processes and emotions and beliefs and belief systems and

just kind of tear out what needs to be torn out. Take the lid

offer it needs to be removed, and invite us into this space and it

can be I'd be honest. When you just start trying to do this,

it's awkward at first, and it goes in and out of awkwardness, honestly,

but if you'll be steady with it, you'll you'll grow from glory to

glory. You'll walk through new veils of encounter with him where it's like,

oh, I just had I had no idea what you were like this and

if you stay with it, and then it might get awkward. The ending

might come in and try to attack that and tear it down. But you

say, Noah, you know, I don't want to go back to what

I had, So what else can I do? And I'm just gonna tell

you the key and the whole process is humility. It's just I don't I

don't even want to pretend I know anymore. I don't. I don't want

to pulpit or a stage, even though I have one. I don't want

to be known. I just want to know you. And you know,

these are the things you've heard people say and I said this, and I'm

sure I've said it when I actually really wanted to be known and really wanted

to be seen, you know. Um. But the progression is into this

place of like the truth that you're how much the way that you matter to

God is that you are first and foremost desired in relationship with Him, and

anything that you do in this world with other people, the secondary all of

it, all of it, and the life that's isn't we're being invited into

is one where your life alone with him, your private reality with him,

supersedes any other external encounter that you have. I love it when we have

just sweeping moves of the spirit in here, and I love it. I

love his presence. I love the way he manifests and heals and brings freedom,

and delivers and touches souls, brings cleansing and forgiveness. I love those

times one hundercent. There's no butts about it. What's available in private,

though, just you and him can and will forever exceed those moments if we'll

let him. I was gonna tell you, if you don't know where to

start with it, and if you have gone through it and swung up and

down, just ask and be honest. A really dear friend of mine had

one of the most significant encounters with the Lord when he was in a hunting

blind and he was angry, and he basically said, I don't I don't

really believe that you love me. Just it was it was the dead truth.

He's he's talking to guys, I just don't really believe that you love

me. And it was that. And this was after a while of just

trying to do the things he knew to do, you know, pray the

prayers he knew to pray, but he stepped into this gut level honesty with

God speaking heart to heart and where he was, and he said, I

just don't think you loved me. And it was that moment that God swept

into that hunting blind and wrecked him and he began to ball and he heard

his voice just about audibly. It was super clear to him. Please don't

feel like you have to speak a certain language or say certain things to him

when you're talking with God. Be you completely open up your heart to him.

If you don't know what to do, just say it. I'm sitting

here with you, I don't really know what to do. Like, I

want more, I have no idea how to get more. I'd like to

be further along, but I just don't know what that looks like. And

I've tried things before and it's not worked. So you know, help me

and just keep with it and just don't give up. Enduring faith is the

faith that Jesus described that would always yield results. It just means you don't

give up. Doesn't mean you don't trip up, stumble, fall, goof

up, screw things up. It means you just don't give up, and

you keep growing and you progress and you and you end up with a heart

that's alive. So there's like none of us can give that to each other.

I wish we could, you know. I'd like to go chase some

people down and be like, hey, you need to give what you got

to me, you need to get you need to give me your hidden life,

and god, you know, that would be dope. I'd go call

Heidi Baker. But wherever we're at, important to remember that he's like the

father waiting, watching the road just to get a glimpse of you, and

as soon as you turn towards him, he's running. You know, that

almost breaks down because he's not actually far away, you know, because he's

right there. Um feel so much affection for you, guys, And I'm

one hundred percent positive what I'm feeling is Father's love for you guys. I

just I guess this is where I want to kind of wrap. Wrap up

is pretty short. I actually wrap up sometimes I go really long after saying

that. But I wonder if we couldn't just at some point, maybe it's

not me that's not right now, It's gonna be in a little bit.

But I just want us to pray together, everyone to pray for yourself and

for each other, that we would have grace to just keep asking and just

keep knocking, knowing the door is gonna open and the veil's gonna open,

and you're just gonna keep going from glory to glory, and you're gonna encounter

him. It's gonna be better than your best moments yet, whatever you w

known of him your whole life, however great, it's just gonna get better

and better and better. And the truth is that that time together, that

connection, that intimacy that's going to form, is going to be the thing

that makes us of people who are obedient out of a place of love.

You can only carry obedience so long from a place of slavery or I don't

know, just human strength, really just being obedient because it's what you're supposed

to do. You know, somebody could live their whole life and only send

once. You could send a million times and be a million times closer to

God. But it is that place of encounter and connection that makes you hate

sin, not because you're supposed to, but you get it. He hates

it. It keeps you from Him, It tears you down, It eats

at your heart. It's that place of connection that you can understand why the

Apostles weren't afraid to die. I mean, we can talk big and tough.

We're Texans, you know, eehaw, and we can do it.

But love is really the thing that sustains you. If it ever comes down

to that for any of us, how much? How much do I really

love him? The other way to really grow and love for him is to

know him and experience his love and encounter how much he genuinely adores you.

Who wants to who wants to just keep down this path with a whole heart?

Right? I mean wholeheartedness, I think is what we're all. It's

a good way to say it. Sometimes. I just I want to be

wholehearted, and I'm working towards it, and he's helping me pull down the

places that I keep between us, and he's helping to heal the things that

cause me to see him wrong. And I'm just we're just moving in this

direction. And I pray that he could give us grace to really accelerate in

that place of encounter, every single one of us, to where the day

to day life is involving so much interaction in exchange with him, so much

intimate as the breath that you breathe and wants you more than you've wanted anything

in your life. M So we're gonna end now. Can we can we

pray together? Can we just let's all stand up. I'm gonna pray a

short prayer and maybe, if you're comfortable, grab the hand of the person

next to you. No, that's okay. Thank you for listening. For

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