Satisfaction
Everyone longs for satisfaction. Mankind is actually wired for satisfaction, and the primary driving force of mankind is actually fulfilling that desire to be satisfied. Since we were made for eternity, nothing less than an eternal source is capable of satisfying our hearts forever. People look for satisfaction in all sorts of ways, but only one source of satisfaction brings joy. Joy is actually the innate feeling that everything is right, or going to be made right...confidence in satisfaction.
So what is it that satisfies? That is the question every heart longs to know. Adventure ...love...good food...a beautiful location...laughter with a good friend...a sunset...winning a game...these all touch it...but none of these can sustain satisfaction. These all hold elements of the One Thing that truly satisfies:
Psalms 27:4 One thing I have desired of the Lord , That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord , And to inquire in His temple.
Mankind was made for a very specific purpose. In that purpose, all the elements of our hunger for satisfaction are met forever. That purpose was revealed right from the start...at the very beginning:
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
God talked to God and decided to make us to be family with Him. To rule with Him over creation. To have dominion...to bring the earth into a divine order in partnership with Him. My heart and your heart were designed to be satisfied by a constant communication with God and an actual purpose in the earth. The combination of a physical life full of process and purpose, combined with the spiritual supernatural realm, all directed toward making the earth into the developed vision God had for it. This is what each one of us was made for: Doing stuff with God that would bring creation into its full potential. Nothing else can satisfy...we were intentionally made this way.
God could have made the earth any way He wanted. He intentionally built creation in a way that required our involvement. Then He placed mankind in the middle of it, and set a choice before him: agree with God in love, or say no to love and live your own way. God chose love. He never forced Adam and Eve to agree with Him. In His mercy, God gave Adam and Eve only one choice to say "no" to love in the garden:
Genesis 3:1-5 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
We know the story. Adam and Eve chose the one way available to say "no" to God's offer to eternal satisfaction in living the way they were designed for...and their eyes WERE opened...not to wisdom, but to knowledge...knowledge of more ways to say "no" to love. Thanks to mankind's initial choice to say "no" to love, we don't have one choice standing before us...we have millions of ways to say no to love. God always gives mankind what we want. We wanted rebellion, and God allowed us to step into deeper depths of rebellion...
BUT, God still chose love. Despite our rejection of Him, Jesus, who is God, was willing to become a man and say no to every choice to rebel against God. He lived a sinless life and died an unjust death on our behalf:
Isaiah 53:4-6 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.
Jesus' was the only man to ever live who didn't choose death by His actions. By Jesus' choices, He qualified for eternal life in satisfaction with the Father. He was the only man who never should have died, but by His unjust death, He traded His earned righteousness for our earned death, and paid the claim of death over us.
But, God still refuses to violate our free will. He refuses to force anyone into choosing satisfaction. Anyone who desires to have their death sentence canceled can choose to apply Jesus blood on their behalf by confessing it...saying it...to God, and then choosing to come back under His leadership (repentance is the fancy word for this)...choosing to live as we were designed to be satisfied, in partnership with God...doing stuff with God...supernatural power touching a physical world through our agreement to talk to God about what needs doing.
Agreeing with God fully satisfies a heart, but it happens over time...in a physical process...choice by choice. Applying Jesus' sacrifice to my life immediately changes my "legal position"...it changes my citizenship from hell to heaven...but it doesn't immediately change my "living condition." There are many citizens of the US, but we don't all have the same living condition...in the same way, there are many citizens of God's kingdom, but we don't all have the same living condition. We choose our living condition, choice by choice, by agreeing with Jesus about what really satisfies!
John 10:10 (NLT) The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.
Because our eyes were opened to many ways to choose death, and because there is an enemy who frantically tries to silently convince our minds that everything BUT God will satisfy us, we are in a war for our minds to believe that Jesus tells the truth. Believing Jesus tells the truth is called faith.
Jesus really is the only way to Joy...that innate confidence in satisfaction.
The more we look at who Jesus is...what He said and what He did...and simply talk to Him about making us like Himself, the more we become like Him. The more we become like Him, the more satisfied we will feel...the more satisfied we feel, the more joy we have...the more joy we have, the more light we shine. This light is what frees others from the darkness of dissatisfaction!
2 Corinthians 3:18 So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
Psalms 17:15 As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.
Luke 11:33-36 “No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light. The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”
So what is it that satisfies? That is the question every heart longs to know. Adventure ...love...good food...a beautiful location...laughter with a good friend...a sunset...winning a game...these all touch it...but none of these can sustain satisfaction. These all hold elements of the One Thing that truly satisfies:
Psalms 27:4 One thing I have desired of the Lord , That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord , And to inquire in His temple.
Mankind was made for a very specific purpose. In that purpose, all the elements of our hunger for satisfaction are met forever. That purpose was revealed right from the start...at the very beginning:
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
God talked to God and decided to make us to be family with Him. To rule with Him over creation. To have dominion...to bring the earth into a divine order in partnership with Him. My heart and your heart were designed to be satisfied by a constant communication with God and an actual purpose in the earth. The combination of a physical life full of process and purpose, combined with the spiritual supernatural realm, all directed toward making the earth into the developed vision God had for it. This is what each one of us was made for: Doing stuff with God that would bring creation into its full potential. Nothing else can satisfy...we were intentionally made this way.
God could have made the earth any way He wanted. He intentionally built creation in a way that required our involvement. Then He placed mankind in the middle of it, and set a choice before him: agree with God in love, or say no to love and live your own way. God chose love. He never forced Adam and Eve to agree with Him. In His mercy, God gave Adam and Eve only one choice to say "no" to love in the garden:
Genesis 3:1-5 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
We know the story. Adam and Eve chose the one way available to say "no" to God's offer to eternal satisfaction in living the way they were designed for...and their eyes WERE opened...not to wisdom, but to knowledge...knowledge of more ways to say "no" to love. Thanks to mankind's initial choice to say "no" to love, we don't have one choice standing before us...we have millions of ways to say no to love. God always gives mankind what we want. We wanted rebellion, and God allowed us to step into deeper depths of rebellion...
BUT, God still chose love. Despite our rejection of Him, Jesus, who is God, was willing to become a man and say no to every choice to rebel against God. He lived a sinless life and died an unjust death on our behalf:
Isaiah 53:4-6 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.
Jesus' was the only man to ever live who didn't choose death by His actions. By Jesus' choices, He qualified for eternal life in satisfaction with the Father. He was the only man who never should have died, but by His unjust death, He traded His earned righteousness for our earned death, and paid the claim of death over us.
But, God still refuses to violate our free will. He refuses to force anyone into choosing satisfaction. Anyone who desires to have their death sentence canceled can choose to apply Jesus blood on their behalf by confessing it...saying it...to God, and then choosing to come back under His leadership (repentance is the fancy word for this)...choosing to live as we were designed to be satisfied, in partnership with God...doing stuff with God...supernatural power touching a physical world through our agreement to talk to God about what needs doing.
Agreeing with God fully satisfies a heart, but it happens over time...in a physical process...choice by choice. Applying Jesus' sacrifice to my life immediately changes my "legal position"...it changes my citizenship from hell to heaven...but it doesn't immediately change my "living condition." There are many citizens of the US, but we don't all have the same living condition...in the same way, there are many citizens of God's kingdom, but we don't all have the same living condition. We choose our living condition, choice by choice, by agreeing with Jesus about what really satisfies!
John 10:10 (NLT) The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.
Because our eyes were opened to many ways to choose death, and because there is an enemy who frantically tries to silently convince our minds that everything BUT God will satisfy us, we are in a war for our minds to believe that Jesus tells the truth. Believing Jesus tells the truth is called faith.
Jesus really is the only way to Joy...that innate confidence in satisfaction.
The more we look at who Jesus is...what He said and what He did...and simply talk to Him about making us like Himself, the more we become like Him. The more we become like Him, the more satisfied we will feel...the more satisfied we feel, the more joy we have...the more joy we have, the more light we shine. This light is what frees others from the darkness of dissatisfaction!
2 Corinthians 3:18 So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
Psalms 17:15 As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.
Luke 11:33-36 “No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light. The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”
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