What Are You Hungry For? | Hope Carpenter

Hello there. Good evening, good morning. Wherever you are joining from, I'm so happy that you are here. Facebook Live, YouTube, wherever you are in this great big world, I am so honored that you chose to spend some time with me tonight. So get settled in, call your friends, share this like this, Let somebody know that I have a word for you tonight. So just going to start off telling you about my morning. I woke up this morning starving. Have you ever done that when you wake up in the morning and you're just like, I gotta get to the kitchen. You know, I woke up just actually thinking when my eyes popped open, I cannot wait to get down there and pour that cereal in that bowl and cut up my banana and put it on and I could see the almond milk just oozing all around my cereal. Have you ever just woke up in the morning and you felt like, have I not eaten for seven days? But you know, for me, I do that every morning. I think I was born hungry. But anyway, during the day there, there's just so many choices, right? So many choices out there to fulfill just our natural appetite. I mean, you got McDonald's, chick fil, a, in n out, steakhouses, Mexican, Italian, all those places. But I have to ask myself this question. When I'm physically hungry, what is best for me? What about you? Or do you just go eat whatever you want? What is best for my body? What do I need? Or do I just feed it whatever it's screaming for, whenever it wants it? If that was the case, listen, I would be eating Snickers all day. I would have chips in my car and I especially listen, would be eating french fries, fried fish, fried shrimp. Those are just my guilty pleasures. What about you? I know we all have them. Won't you type those in if you're in a chat somewhere and let us know what your eating guilty pleasure is? But you know what that is? That is fulfilling the cravings of our flesh. Can you guess where I'm going tonight? Can you guess what we're going to deal with that is fulfilling the cravings that my flesh is crying out for? That. It just wants that. It's screaming in my head, you deserve this. Right? Your tummy growls. Your head can even ache. You can get a headache from being very hungry. You know, the world calls that. What? Hangry. You can be so hungry that you're angry. Why? Because you're on a schedule. You're accustomed to feeding yourself and your body is crying out for it. It wants it. It wants it. How many of you ever had babies you get that newborn baby in at least every screaming. It doesn't matter if you're in a dead sleep. It does not matter if you're in REM or if you haven't slept in days. That baby is crying out to be fed every two hours. It can be a nightmare. Your body cries out, right? Your body wants to be fed. And it will let you know by what? Growling. Let's see if you can hear mine. Nah, you can't hear it today. I just fed it. Headaches, even withdrawals. Have you ever been addicted to like chocolate or diet soda? Mountain Dew, sweet tea. Do you know how hard it is to stop drinking diet soda? I do. Listen, I grew up on sweet tea. Sweet, sweet tea. And if you had tea that wasn't like syrup, it was yucky. Why? Because that's what you're used to. You can train your body to live on much less something different. I was on a diet one time years ago and I got down to 1200 calories a day. It can be done. You will get used to that and you'll be full over time. You can stop drinking the Mountain Dew or the Diet Coke or whatever. So now I don't drink sweet tea. Listen to me. I drink completely unsweet tea with no artificial flavoring, no artificial sugars in it. And if I have any, if they mixed up my drink at the restaurant, put sweet tea in it, I put it in my mouth and I almost want to spit it because I don't like it anymore. It does not taste right to me. Listen, in the spirit, if you are not used to spending time with the Lord, to feeding your spirit daily, listen, you won't think you've missed a thing because you are so full. Because you don't know how good that tastes to your spirit. I need to ask you tonight, what are you hungry for? What are you craving? What are you desperate? What are you achy? What are you thirsty for? Listen, when you are hungry, when you're really hungry, you will get up out of the bed. You will spend money. You might have only $5 left in your wallet, but if you're hungry, you gonna spend it on food. You will get up out of the bed, spend money and drive across town to get what you want if it's not near you. And this is the same desperation that we are supposed to have for the presence of God, for the things of God, for spending time with God, for being in the Word, for being cor. Together. The Bible says forsake not the assembly together with your believers. As some are in the what habit of doing? This is how we're supposed to be. This is the hunger we are supposed to have for the things of God. We say we're hungry. Come on now, somebody. We say we're hungry, but are we really. What are we really hungry for? Do you want to know? This is what you're really hungry for. This is what I'm really hungry for. It's what you're choosing to fill yourself with. If you're filling yourself with lesser pleasures of the world, how can you have an appetite for God? Come on, now. I know this is tough. Are you ready? The proof of desire, pursuit. That's how I know you want McDonald's, because you get up and you drive to McDonald's. That's how I know you want Starbucks, because you're willing to pay $5 and wait 30 minutes in a line. The proof of desire is pursuit. And let me tell you something. The pursuit of God will always cost you something. Sacrifice will always be required. It means that we must make choices, say choices about how we live our lives. Have you ever wondered. Listen. Have you ever wondered if the amount of God's presence that you experience daily is directly related Are you ready? Have you wondered. Have you ever wondered if the amount of God's presence that you experience daily is directly related to the sacrifice that we bear in our pursuit to be more and to have more of Jesus? Whoo. Think about it. Let it soak in. Jesus said in John 7:37, if anyone thirsty, let him come to me and drink. If any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink. When you're thirsty, you have choices, right? When you're depressed, you have a choice. When you're anxious, you have a choice. When you're confused, you have a choice. When you are completely stressed out at work, you have a choice. You have a choice where you go to drink, to get filled. If you're full of anxiety, you have a choice. Do you get in the presence of God and let that spirit just flood your room, or do you run to the local bar and drink your sorrows away? You have a choice. Jesus said, if you're thirsty, come to me and drink. Thirst is just a craving. It's something that you're trying to satisfy. In all those whales that we go to that never, never, never fill us up. Shopping, a good friend to make you feel good, to laugh, another trip, the pleasures of this world. And Jesus said, if you thirst, come to me and drink what you fill yourself with. This is the reason he wants you to come to him. Because whatever you fill yourself with, it goes into your heart, and then your heart produces in your life. Listen, Proverbs 4:23 says, Keep. That word keep means guard. Put a guard around your heart with all diligence, for out of it your heart springs the issues of your life. This scripture makes it clear that there is a river of life flowing out of a believer. Whether it's good or bad, we're producing positive or negative, and it's flowing out of what we put in. Whatever is poured in is what will flow out. Do you know people who have mixture? Have you ever had mixture? I have fresh water one day, the next day, stinky water. All coming from the same source. How? It's because you've been filling up from different fountains. You've been going different places to get filled. It shows what's put in by what's coming out. I can be around people 15, 20, 30 minutes and tell if they've been in the presence of God, if they've gotten God's precious promises on whatever it is they're going through. Yeah, we all go through stuff, but it does not have to determine our attitude. Listen, desperately hungry people will eat almost anything. If you're desperately hungry for God, you will get up early. You will get up early to spend time with God. You will stay up late to study and pray and read. You'll move out of the normal routine and circumstances to seek God so that you can get through satisfied. The proof of desire is pursuit. The initial hunger comes for God when you accept Jesus as your savior at salvation. But listen, just like the dating stage in relationships. Oh, when you're dating, you know, they might like Italian. You don't even like Italian. You're like, yes, honey, let's go to Italian, right? Or, yes, let's go hiking. You ain't never been hiking in your life after the honeymoon, though. Come on, somebody, they say, let's go hiking. You're like, nah, you go hiking. I'm just going to stay here because, you know, I really don't even like hiking. Or if they say, let's go to Italian tonight, why do we always have to go where you want to go? I want to go to Mexican. Come on, tell the truth. You have to be intentional about doing what the other wants. You have to be intentional about showing your love and being sacrificial and it costing you something. Say intentional. My prayer is tonight. Lord, increase. Increase our appetite for the things of God. Lord, increase it. If that's you listening to me, Right now, just raise your hands and say, God, increase my appetite for the things of God. How do you do it, Hope? How do you do it? Number one, you got to be around hungry people. Whoo. Listen, I'm fine with my cellulite until I'm around 20 year olds who don't have it. And this has been my prayer. Lord, if I can't be skinny, let all my friends be fat. I'm just kidding. That was wrong, wasn't it? I told you it would be costly. And after the honeymoon phase with God, Listen, ah, this is our. This is what we do now. When we first get saved, we're like, yes, church. Yes, a women's conference. Yes, a conference. Oh, they got two services. I'm staying for both. But after the honeymoon phase, this is us. Oh, man, I could be doing so much more on my Friday night. Instead of going to Friday night prayer every Friday night, why won't they just have it on the fourth Friday night or the first Friday night? Why do I have to give up every Friday night to go to prayer? Well, do you love your cellulite or do you want those toned, fit legs? Come on now. Do you want to be lukewarm? Fall into temptation, stay negative, full of anxiety? Heck yeah. French fries are better than steamed veggies. Heck yeah. But what's best for me, it's going to cost you Say it's going to cost me. I got to be willing to give up some things. I got to be willing to do some things to pursue the presence of God. What do you want more? Do you want the french fries or do you want a long, clean bill of health? Revelation 3 is a great picture of what I'm preaching. It is the picture of the Laodicean lukewarm church. Listen, they did not know that they were drinking water that would make other people sick who came into their city. A visitor could come into their city and drink the same water that they drank on a daily basis and they would get sick. But the people of Laodicea, it never phased them because they were used to it. They say that you can take a frog and you can put it into water, room temperature water, and you can boil him to death and he will never know it. If you turn the temperature up little by little by little by little. This is the example of the scripture in Proverbs 27:7 that says the fall soul. What is our soul? It's our mind, our will, our emotions, our intellect, the full soul, the emotions that are so filled, the mind that's got so much going on in it. The full soul hates the honeycomb. What is the honeycomb? It's the best part. It's the sweet part. We are so full of everything else that we don't even want the best part. So full of the pleasures of this world. Listen. Truly hungry people do not have manners. Have you ever seen a video or something on television where you see children in a third world country and they're coming in with airplanes and helicopters and they're dropping food down to these children? You don't have to say, okay, now stand in line. Now use your fork. Truly hungry people will bust through the line. They'll have food running down their face. They don't care if they've got a piece of rice on their chin. They don't care what you think about them. And that is what God wants for us in the spirit. He does not want us to care if our mascara is streaming down our face and if we're crying so hard we just got tears going everywhere in front of everybody. Truly hungry people do not have manners. We too pretty in church. We're too pretty today. What are you hungry for? What are you desperate for? Listen, we might need to call a corporate fast to strip ourselves of all the other earthly pleasures that are filling us up and we don't even know what we're missing. The full soul hates the honeycomb. The full soul hates the very best part. And here's the promise. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Matthew 5, 6, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the hosts who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed is another word for happy. Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. We all want to be happy. Everybody listening to me wants to be happy. But we pursue all kinds of things that we think will make us happy, but they never, ever satisfy. It keeps you going back to the refrigerator, so to speak, to get filled up. And you have to go back again. And you got to get filled up and you got to go back again and get filled up. And you got to go back and have another drink and get filled up, because that one wasn't enough. And you got to have another pocketbook and you got to have another man and you got to have a bigger house and you got to have a nicer car. Listen, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled. And happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. When you get a taste of Jesus, when you get a taste of righteousness, real Happiness that the world didn't give you and the world can't take it away. Everything else will start to taste nasty, just like that sweet tea. Tastes nasty to me now. It used to taste so good, but I have trained myself. It has cost me something. It was costly to retrain myself, but I wouldn't go back. Now. Listen. I used to think other things would satisfy me. And it led me down a road of desperation. Spiritual anorexia. I was dying. And until you know what well to go to, you will never be filled. I'm here to ask you tonight, what are you hungry for? What are you hungry for? What are you thirsty for? Where are you going to get filled up? It's going to cost you. The prize is worth the process. The proof of desire is pursuit. We can look at your bank account and tell what you love, what you're hungry for. If there's more ledger entries for Target, Macy's, Belk, Dillard's, cars, car payments than it is for the Lord. Your love for the Lord. You're giving to your local church, you're giving to ministries. Listen, it's easy to see what you're really hungry for. I'm asking you tonight, what are you desperate for? Do you really, really, really want to be happy? Do you really, really, really want Jesus to be the Lord of your life? You're going to have to get on a spiritual diet. You got to cut some things out of your life. You got to make room for God. I'm asking you tonight, what do you need to get rid of to make room for God? So that you can be happy and blessed and filled and never have to go to another well again? I want to pray for you tonight. Hunger can be produced. Say, how can hunger be produced? Stop eating. Stop eating everything else that is filling you up. How many hours do you stay on the Internet? How many hours do you watch Netflix? None of that's bad in itself. But is it filling you up so much that you have no hunger and craving for the things of God? How do you produce hunger? Stop eating. Come on, somebody. The proof of desire. You say you want it, but get up and do it. Make the necessary, necessary changes. Father God, I thank you. I thank you for your word. I thank you, Lord, that you have given us the prescription for how to be happy and fulfilled in this life. But God, I pray that you now give us the discipline to cut out whatever it takes in our life so that we can make room for you so, God, that only the true hungry can be filled. Only the true anger empty can be filled. Do it tonight. God. I just heard the Holy Spirit say that some of you are going through trials and tests. You're going through some of the darkest times in your life. And you're saying, where's this coming from? What if God is asking you in the trial? He's trying to shave you down, down, reduce you to nothing. But, Jesus, what if the trial has come to make you hungry? Lord, I thank you for this word. Tonight I decree and declare a spirit of hunger over everybody under the sound of my voice. Because only Jesus, Psalm 107, can satisfy the longings of our soul. I'll see you next time.