Devotionals

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What’s in your appetite?
By Robert Schaetzle



Dialoging one morning with our Lord in Mathew 4, I stopped at verse four, and re-read the verse with greater recognition of heavenly vision and hunger to my spiritual appetite.

The setting is when our Lord was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, the tempter came to Him and said, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
In verse four Jesus replied, “It is written, ‘man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”[RSV]

That got me thinking… “I know Lord, your speaking truth not for food to satisfy my stomach, but rather, that which nourishes and strengthens the heart and soul of my faith walk with you each day.”

Recalling a message I shared at our Local Re-Hab Center “Where’s Your Treasure?” I asked, reflecting on what we feed on each day through the newspaper and television media. Our Father in heaven makes it very clear where your treasure is there will your heart be also.

There are so many admonitions given us from God’s word, not to be conformed to this world, but rather, be transformed by the renewal of your mind, a daily feeding upon His truth.

How the tempter works today I feel, through the medium of too much of the junk food diet fed to us by way of TV, whether it be the nightly news and/or other programming.

How often we fail to receive His greater blessing because of our biblical illiteracy and lack of obedience to do what He asks from us. We digest our intellectual appetites of the daily paper and TV network news broadcasts, convincing ourselves, “I must keep myself informed.”
But I’ve asked through the many years in my own faith walk, “How is this causing improvement of character and maturity to trust God more each day? How essential is it for me, and how can I build Godly Character, by being fed on a sensationalized daily input of murders, rapes, or other ‘worldly sensations of the hour,’ as it were, day in and day out through my life?

Yes, I want to be informed, but in this technology age we live in today we can be more selective where, when, how, why, the resources we receive our information of world wide events. There’s now a host of Christian TV networks and multi resources to select from, even Christian based internet news via your computer.
But most importantly, by reducing our media time and spending more time I know our Lord desires, by dialoging each day with Him in prayer,
memorizing and meditating upon God’s word will help us to desire more the things above, rather than be so conformed to the things of the world. {cf Colossians 3:1-3 / 1John 2:15-16}
Indeed, if we have been raised up with Christ, our treasure ought to be to want to digest more of His word and receive a dessert of His blessing, rather than be developing acid reflux and indigestion from all the unessential junk food diet fed by too much daily network media miseries.

How often it’s been said “We’re only passing through this world of flesh and blood, so we ought not to get too comfortable in it, or, attached to it.”

Being a writer I enjoy reading, mostly non-fiction. I’m a history buff and enjoy reading events of past from biblical history, and much of the history of our nation. All this is to say I enjoying using my time to inform, and to pass on and to teach others, by way of volunteer work.

Being semi-retired I’ve found much reward in serving others. This is not to say we’re all joined this way by having the same desire, however, I feel most people miss out from receiving a greater fulfillment in their own faith walk, only because of biblical malnutrition and not using his or her time here on earth with heavenly intent.
Ephesians 5:15-16 share, ‘Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.’ [NASB]

We spend so much of our waking hours by not resting on the preservation, strength, and power, we might have abiding within us, because we’re undernourished on God’s promises waiting for us.

Proverbs 16:20 promises, ‘He who gives attention to the word will find good, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.’
Compare this with Proverbs 28:26, ‘He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but he who walks wisely will be delivered.’ NASB

We each must come to a place in our own faith walk to search our own heart and do as the Psalmist bids, ‘Search me O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any wicked way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.’ [Psalm 139:34-24 NASB

How precious and stronger, our body, mind and soul, will be, ‘Like apples of Gold in settings of silver’ will our lives reflect His light to shine brighter each day, and for His honor, when the appetite our heart grows through His precious word.

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