Did you know
that we can learn a lot about our bodies by just the foods that we crave.
If you crave
salty food, it often reveals that you have a low calcium diet. A lack of potassium, calcium and iron in our
diet. Research has also shown that it
also reveals interesting facts about your personality. A salt lover often feels like their world is
out of control.
Ok, what
about chocolate?? Any chocolate lovers
here? Chocolate stimulates the release
of serotonin and is basically an antidepressant that your body seeks out when
your happy chemicals are bottoming out and you need a quick fix. We are also drawn to sweet food when we feel
anxious.
Jesus had a
lot to say about our appetites and how hard people work for everything that
will meet their physical needs in this life.
In John 4,
we have the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. He is absolutely dehydrated from a long
journey and so he sits by Jacob’s well while the disciples make a quick food
run. The woman shows and Jesus asks her
for a drink. She is caught off guard
because Jews don’t associate with this type and for sure not a woman in broad
daylight! So, the conversation turns to
worship and Jesus talks about a well that she can drink from that will never
make her thirst again. He speaks of
Himself and the rivers of living water that flow through a person once they put
their faith in Christ for all their needs!
So, she is all over that and is ready for living water.
Then the story
takes an interesting twist as Jesus refers to her messed up sex life. He asks her to get her husband and as it
turns out she is living with a guy. He knows that and knows that she has had
six men in her life. Why does He go there?
He is pointing to the fact that she has been trying to get all her
fulfillment and needs met in men.
There are a
number of attitudes about sex in our culture.
One view is that it is just unmentionable or it’s should just be between
two loving people. Another attitude
speaks of it as a right. Everyone should
be entitled to it. The view that I want
to focus on is that it is an appetite.
Sex is just that, an appetite and so people see it as a natural need
like eating or drinking and you shouldn’t starve your body. However, the problem with that view is to
miss the essence of what a sexual relationship is. Tim Keller refers to it as a sacrament. He goes on to speak of what we do in a sexual
relationship is meant to be done with what we do with our life. It is a complete giving of our whole life and
is the culmination of the perfect union of every other part of our life. Genesis 2 speaks of a husband and wife
becoming one flesh. It is the essence of
this that every type of sex without giving of our whole life falls so desperately
short.
If you are
hungry and there is nowhere to eat, it feels unbearable doesn't it? If this is an area that you haven’t trusted
Jesus to be your living water, choose to possibly look it as a diet. Consider sexual fasting until marriage so
that you can experience the true richness of a deep and satisfying love. It was always meant to mirror the picture of
our oneness in every way, complete vulnerability and sacrifice with each other.
The Lord’s
Supper is an example of this. As sex in
marriage is a picture of renewing our covenant with each other so is communion
in that Jesus saw the bread as his very body and the blood as his very own in
John 6. The bread represents the true
satisfaction that comes from doing the will of the Father, it is higher than
appetite. The blood represents
forgiveness, reconciliation, healing.If we do
this outside of marriage, we miss the essence of it altogether.
Well, back
to John 4. The profound realization that
this woman experiences with Jesus makes her run to her community and tell her
friends all about this man who could just be the Messiah! She is changed by her conversation with
Jesus. The disciples return on the scene
and they are very concerned about Jesus’ appetite. They tell him to eat and he tells them, “I
have a kind of food you know nothing about.” and “My nourishment comes from
doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work.” Amazing!
We can actually experience a true satisfaction that goes beyond our
appetites!!
Check this out!! A great expression of the living water of Jesus to fulfill our appetites! A 'forever monologue' by Issac Wimberley with Kari Jobe! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCOvxfHGIPQ
