John Bevere - Looking For Intimacy with God?

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Hey everybody, welcome to Drawing Near. This is lesson two, and the title of this lesson is «Protect Your Hunger.» I was having a conversation with a believer one day, and he made this statement to me. He said, «You know, the more I have walked with God, the more I realize that it takes God drawing us for us to have intimacy with Him.» I replied, «I’m sorry, that’s just not an accurate statement.» I went on to ask him where he got that from, and he said, «Well, Jesus said, 'No man can come to me except the Father draw him.'» I said, «That’s talking about an unbeliever. Once we are in the family of God, even my children can approach me anytime they want.»

I’m talking about my family; I have four sons. They can approach me whenever they want. I get calls and texts from them all the time. This is a relationship. God gave us marriage and family to show us His desire. Jesus is the groom; we are the bride. God is the Father; we are the family of God. So much can be learned when we view family dynamics in light of the family of God. Do not ever believe that it takes God knocking you over the head or getting a bush to burn, as we talked about in the last chapter, for you to approach Him. This invitation is open to us constantly. We can constantly draw near to Him; He’s always ready. The question is, are we ready to engage with intimacy with Him?

So, the baffling question remains: why do so many believers have such a shallow relationship with God? Why are they satisfied without being in His presence? The answer is not complex; it’s all about our hunger and thirst to know Him. David, King David, makes the statement in Psalm 42, verses 2 through 4: «My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night while they continually say to me, where is your God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me.» This is a verse to ponder and meditate on. Listen to the hunger in David; listen to his thirst. He said, «My soul thirsts for God; I am hungry for Him.» Then he makes this statement, «When I remember these things, that’s when I pour out my soul to You.» The Hebrew word for «remember,» zakar, is no different than its English counterpart; it not only means to recall something but also to retain in thought constantly. What David is actually saying is that when I retain my desire for God in my thoughts, it causes me to pour out my soul.

I had a minister who’s been in ministry for 30 years, and he’s a dear friend. He said to me, «John, I just have to be open and transparent; I really want to have a deeper relationship with God.» This guy is so powerful; he has seen over half a million high school students come to Jesus and almost a hundred thousand high school students not commit suicide. Yet, 30 years into his ministry, he made that statement, which tells me that just being in ministry doesn’t mean we’re having an intimate relationship. Just being a king didn’t give David an intimate relationship with God. David was hungry; he was king of Israel, but he was hungry for a relationship with God.

Here’s a statement I want you to write down in your iPhone, iPad, notebook, or wherever: We are the ones who determine our level of hunger for God, not God. Many people pray this, «Lord, increase my hunger for You.» You can pray until you’re blue in the face; that prayer will not be answered because it is unscriptural. God is not the one responsible for your hunger for Him; you are.

I cannot stress that enough. The only way we can create and maintain hunger for God is to protect our souls by choosing what we fill them with. Listen to the Scripture: Proverbs 27, verse 7: «A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb, but to the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet.» When a soul is satisfied, it will actually loathe. The Hebrew word for «loathe» means to trample down.

Let me give you an example to illustrate this. In the United States, we have a big holiday called Thanksgiving. Think about Thanksgiving Day. Typically, many Americans don’t eat breakfast because we have that Thanksgiving meal around two o’clock in the afternoon. We want to be so hungry that we feel like we can eat a cow. So, we go to our parents' house, and Mom has cooked a feast: turkey, stuffing, salad, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and charcuterie trays. We feast for an hour, right? But then, three hours later, we go to our spouse’s family’s home, and that mother makes the exact same meal. When she brings it out, we go, «Oh, we’re so full.» We actually now despise what we couldn’t wait to eat three hours earlier. This is exactly what Proverbs is talking about—when it says the soul that is full will loathe the honeycomb.

The honeycomb is significant; the Hebrews would give their children honey every time they spoke a scripture to them because they wanted them to understand the sweetness of God’s Word. So, when Hebrew uses the word honeycomb, we can read it like this: «A satisfied soul will actually loathe; it won’t want anything to do with the Word of God.» Man, that is tragic when you think about it.

There is a church in the Book of Revelations—it’s actually the seventh church that Jesus sends a letter to. I want to make a statement here: there are seven historic churches that Jesus has a letter to in the Book of Revelations: Ephesus, Thyatira, Pergamum, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and all these other seven churches. If these messages that Jesus spoke to these churches were only intended for those churches, then God never would have put them in Scripture. The very fact that God put them in Scripture means they have prophetic application; in other words, they apply to us today.

The church I want to focus on is Laodicea. Jesus says to this church, «Thus says the faithful and true witness.» Faithful means, «I’m going to tell you the truth every time.» True means, «I’m going to tell you the truth whether you like it or not because I love you.» He said, «I know that you’re neither hot nor cold, and I would rather you be hot or cold.» Can you imagine that? Jesus is saying to a church, «I’d rather you be hot or cold.» Cold is the person who has no relationship with God; to me, this is mind-blowing. In other words, their lukewarm state was worse than being cold. He was saying they were in a worse state than someone who doesn’t even have a relationship with Him.

And because you are lukewarm, He said, «I will vomit you out of My mouth.» You cannot vomit out of your mouth what is not in your body. This is a church Jesus calls a church, yet they are so indifferent, so lukewarm, that He said, «If you don’t change, I will vomit you out of My mouth.» Whoa, that gets my attention. Many Bible scholars believe that church represents the church of the last days.

Now, what does it mean? We have an indifferent church called Laodicea. What causes this indifference? Jesus said, «Because you say, 'I am rich, I have become wealthy, and I have need of nothing.'» What set them up is that they called themselves rich; they called themselves needing nothing, and their souls were full, which is why they were indifferent. A shallow assessment of this church would be, «Okay, they were indifferent because they had a lot of money,» because Laodicea was historically a very wealthy city. But that’s a shallow and inaccurate assessment; they had too much money.

Come on, really? King David had so much money he turned over to his son Solomon four thousand tons of pure gold and forty thousand tons of silver, with so much iron and bronze that it couldn’t be weighed. This guy had money, but yet he’s the one who goes, «I pour out my soul; my soul thirsts for You; I long for You.» It wasn’t money that caused David to not have passion, because he had great passion—so much passion for God that he transcended from being just a king to a prophet and king. God saw his hunger was that great, and He said, «I will not only make you a king; I will give you the added anointing of being a prophet.» That’s amazing; he’s the only king that ever entered into that realm.

He’s kind of like Enoch; he was so hungry to be intimate with God that God just said, «I can’t stand this anymore; I’m taking you.» I just don’t understand why we sometimes think that God is much different in the sense that we’re made in His image. Don’t you have certain people you want to be closer to more than others? Why? It’s because they like being around you. I don’t want to be around people who don’t want anything to do with me; I want to be around people who want to be around me.

Well, this is David—David’s hungry for God, and God says, «Okay, David, I’m going to reveal an aspect of My person—of Myself—to you that none of the other kings will ever have, and that is you’re going to get to be a prophet.» To me, that’s mind-blowing. Listen to how David describes himself: «Bow down Your ear, O Lord; hear me, for I am poor and needy.»

Isn’t it interesting that David calls himself poor and needy, yet he gives his son four thousand tons of gold? Laodicea says, «I am rich,» but yet Jesus says, «You’re poor and naked and miserable.» This has nothing to do with how much money or possessions you have; it has everything to do with what you give your soul to. If you give your soul to 40 hours a week of social media, guess what? You’re not going to be hungry. You’re going to sit there looking at me right now on the screen and think, «I can’t relate to what he’s saying.» Well, you can’t relate because you’ve given your appetite to what doesn’t satisfy. The things of this world will never ever satisfy.

If you look at David, he also said, «My tears have been my food day and night while they continually say to me, 'Where is your God? '» He is searching; he’s seeking because he loves God that much. I remember years ago I was asked to speak to the Cree Indians up in Northern Canada. It was crazy. I had to fly to Montreal, then fly another hour and a half straight north, and then drive two hours straight north until I finally got way up in the top of Canada. There was this massive reservation for the Cree Indians. I’ll never forget this; it was their summer camp meeting in July. There were 1500 of them under the tent, and they were rushing for the front row seats. They were so hungry for God.

But what I couldn’t help but notice was that all the 17, 18, and 19-year-olds were standing at the very back of the tent. They were indifferent and just looking around, giggling and laughing. Finally, one day, I was preaching during the weeklong camp meeting, and I ran to the back of the tent and started confronting those 17- and 18-year-olds. «Why aren’t you engaging?»

All of a sudden, my eyes were opened, and I saw one had a Los Angeles Lakers shirt on, another had a Dallas Cowboys hat, and another had a Green Bay Packers cap. I realized here were these poor Cree Indians, but they had just recently gotten televisions in their houses, and now these 17- and 18-year-olds were filling their souls with what didn’t satisfy.

What was amazing was that I got on a plane, flew back to the United States, and went to the Northwest section of the United States, Seattle. I attended a youth conference, and in all my 35 years of traveling and speaking all over the world, I’ve seen very few instances where I’ve encountered greater hunger than what I saw in those young people at that youth conference. After the first night service, I found myself surrounded by six deep of 17- and 18-year-olds all around me, asking me questions. Suddenly, I looked at my watch, and it was almost midnight. I said, «Oh my gosh, we’ve been standing here for hours talking!» They said, «Please, can we take you to lunch? We want to know more about God.» I said, «Absolutely,» so they rented out an entire restaurant the next day.

When I pulled up to the restaurant, I noticed all the cars were BMWs, Mercedes, and the finest, most expensive cars. These kids were really wealthy but still had so much more hunger than the poor Cree Indian kids who just had a television and a Lakers shirt. In other words, it’s what we give our soul to.

In Revelation chapter 3, verse 20, Jesus makes the statement to this indifferent church, «Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me.» Notice He said, «If anyone hears.» What keeps us from hearing is filling our souls with all the things of this world. They may not be sinful things; they’re just things that consume our soul so that we have no left for hunger for Him.

When I eat that Thanksgiving meal, it’s not a sinful meal. When I’m hungry, I consume it. Then, when I go three hours later to my in-laws’ house and they put that same food out, I don’t want anything to do with it because I’m already full. When your soul is full—even if not with just evil things but just full—you’re not going to retain your hunger for God. God sent Moses to the backside of the desert for one reason: he was there for 40 years because, as the Prince of Egypt, he got anything he wanted. God said, «I’m going to create a hunger in him.»

That hunger was so strong that when God appeared in that bush, Moses said, «I’m turning aside.» There wasn’t any hesitation; his soul was hungry. He wanted to know the Creator. Write this statement down: **Hunger is the determining factor of whether or not we will pursue intimacy with God.** And I’ll say it again: **We are in control of our appetite, not God.** The question is, what appetites and cravings are we going to develop?

Here’s the statement I want you to write down: **You will hunger for what you feed on.** I’m going to say it again: **You will hunger for what you feed on.** Let me give you a natural example. When I was in college, I was the biggest junk food junkie on the planet. I loved Twinkies, HoHos, Ding Dongs, Big Macs, and Coke and Fries; that was my favorite meal. One day, I was looking for some junk food, and at about 22 years old, the Holy Spirit said, «Your body is My temple; take care of it.» Suddenly, the thought came: «Wow, if I had a Ferrari, would I put dirty gas and recycled oil in it? Would it still run? Yes. Would I shorten its life? Yes. I can get another Ferrari, but I can’t get another one of these.»

All of a sudden, I realized that I would answer to God one day for shortening the life of my body if I didn’t change my eating habits. I went, «Whoa.» So I started reading and researching how to eat healthy. I didn’t know a thing about it, but I soon realized that eating fresh-caught fish, salads, and whole grain bread was essential.

At first, let me tell you, if you put a Big Mac, fries, and Coke in front of me alongside a piece of fish and salad, I would have said, «Give me the Big Mac, fries, and Coke!» But that word from God caused me to choose the fish and salad. There was a benefit I didn’t realize was going to happen. After a couple of years of eating healthy, my taste began to change. I didn’t crave donuts or cake anymore. People would sit with me at the table and say, «You really want this cake I’m eating right now?» and I’d reply, «Actually, I have absolutely no desire for it.» I literally changed my appetite by what I fed on.

Well, if you’re constantly feeding on social media, ESPN, or just mainstream media all day, guess what? Someone’s going to put a Bible in front of you, and you’re going to think, «Uh-uh, yeah, I’ll read it. I’m a Christian; I guess I should read my chapter today.»

What would happen if you spent more time in Scripture than on social media? The average youth in America between 15 and 25 years old spends 50 hours a week on social media. What if they spent half that time in the Word of God? We would have a generation that’s hungry and thirsty for God, just like David.

Now, don’t take this to an unhealthy extreme. I remember one time I was still a single man, and my time was consumed with Bible school and studying the Word of God. My roommate said, «Hey, a bunch of us are getting together to play some touch football. Do you want to come?» I said, «No, I’m going to get in the Word this afternoon.» I remember he left the apartment, and I opened my Bible and started reading, but it was so dry I could strike a match on it.

I bowed my head and said, «God, what have I done?» And God spoke to me and said, «Go play touch football.» I went, «What? Go play touch football?» The Lord said, «Yes.» So I went out and played for an hour and a half, and when I came back, I opened my Bible, and all of Heaven opened up. I went, «Whoa, what just happened?»

Then the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, «Son, of the making of many books there is no end; much study is weariness of the flesh.» That’s Ecclesiastes chapter 12. He said, «Son, your brain is part of your flesh; it needs rest. Remember, there were times that My disciples were so busy ministering that they didn’t have time to eat, and I pulled them aside and I said, ‘Come apart and rest.’ Recreation means recreation.»

So, don’t go to the unhealthy extreme like I did; learn the right balance. But make sure you’re feeding yourself with the Word of God. I want to make this statement: **Your hunger is your spiritual thermometer.**

Write that down: **Your hunger is your spiritual thermometer.** What do I mean by «thermometer»? When someone is sick with the flu, they put a thermometer under their tongue. That thermometer says, «You’ve got a 101-degree fever.» You know what else they say? «He lost his appetite.» This is what happens to us spiritually.

Now here’s the deal: if we live our lives and go on one meal a week, guess what? Most of the week, our body is going to be screaming, «I’m hungry.» Here’s what’s scary: the less we eat of the Word of God, the quieter our spirits become. So it’s just the opposite. When we don’t eat, our physical bodies scream at us, «I’m hungry!» But when we don’t eat spiritually, our spirits get quieter, and now it takes a little more consistency to regain that appetite.

Let me tell you something: protect your appetite. Protect it, because it’s going to determine whether you hunger and thirst for God or whether you just walk through this life unsatisfied by what you’re filling your soul with. We saw how we determine our level of hunger for God, not God. So, in the next lesson, we’ll talk about how to develop a passion for the presence of God. You don’t want to miss it. Thank you.