How Hungry are you? I don’t think I’ve ever seen such spiritual hunger as I saw recently at my friend Svetoslav’s church, NCC, in Plovdiv Bulgaria. Ministry times would see a sea of people swarm the front! These massive barrel-chested Bulgarian men with shaved heads, muscle shirts and tattoos were hugging each other over and over in massive bear hugs, crying as the presence of the Lord swept over them. Teenagers were jumping, running, weeping and, shouting so loud my ears would be ringing! Women, young and old alike crying out to the Lord with loud shouts and groans, some with hands raised, others on their knees. Meetings would last 4 hours or more with many healings being reported.
Ken Gott one of the Catch the Fire ambassadors led a particularly powerful service where the whole congregation, hundreds of people, pressed to the front and raised a shout for revival at the absolute maximum volume a person can yell. This shout lasted a good 25 solid minutes – non-stop!
Moments like this leave a deep impression.
We often talk about spiritual hunger, but how hungry are you really? If you’re not as hungry as these Bulgarians, then here are my 2 top tips to deepen your hunger level.
Tip 1: Sofa Christianity is Deadly
Just as sitting on the sofa slowly kills us physically due to lack of exercise, the same happens spiritually. We’ve had a fast-food type of Churchianity where we sit and are spoon-fed, but if all your expression of faith involves sitting and listening to someone else, then it’s couch potato faith.
Faith is a verb, it’s an action word. It involves doing stuff. If your faith isn’t being expressed with action, then you have couch potato faith, and that’s just as deadly as a couch potato exercise routine. If you really believe something, then your actions will back it up. No actions, and one must ask how deeply you believe. If your revelation of Jesus is as your provider – then start being a provider to someone else. Is Jesus your Good Sheppard – then start mentoring someone else, whatever you believe about Jesus is an action item for your faith.
Tip 2: Testimonies Test Your Soil
When you hear a particularly inspiring testimony, those words are alive, and they have amazing power to lift your faith. I’m sure you have experienced this many times hearing other people’s stories. How you respond to a testimony like this is a good indicator of the condition of your soil.
Soil?
In Mathew 13:18-23 Jesus is explaining about the seeds and the soil. In the rocky ground and the shallow ground, the seeds sprang up but were short-lived because they had shallow or rocky soil. When you hear a life-changing inspiring testimony and you are initially empowered but by the afternoon you have forgotten about it, then you have a soil problem.
You can start to change this if you go past the place where they have an amazing story, and instead begin to ask yourself, “What’s it going to take for ME to step into that in my life?” Receiving an answer to that question and putting it into effect will deepen your soil, or in other words, make you hungry.
Knowing what it’s going to take to get off the spiritual sofa, get your soil right and get your spiritual hunger going is the start of a spiritual plan that will produce fruit in your life.
If you need some support to help you get off the spiritual sofa, or perhaps you’re already experiencing this hunger but aren’t sure where to go next, we can help. Our primary focus is to help believers to experience a deeper personal relationship with God and we do this through our Membership Program. Our 3 tiers are each built to meet you where you are and move you up to where you need to be. Sound good? We think so. Find out more today.
Blessings
Franklyn
