Starving to Do God’s Will

Today we’re returning to Biblical Diagnosis which today reminds us that we will never feel satisfied if we are not living in the will of God and doing the will of God; it will be something we hunger for. Click the header below to read this at its original site.

The Hunger of Doing God’s Will

May the Lord open our spiritual eyes, that we may understand His Will. Allow me to dig into the well-known story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob, as it relates to God’s children being spiritually fed by carrying the Will of God through good works.

We understand indeed from the scriptures that we have been created to do good works, as the Apostles, and most notably Jesus Himself have expressed in so many different ways. Doing good works is our purpose, our very reason for existing:

Ephesians 2:10 –…we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

Matthew 5:13 – You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

Matthew 5:14 – “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden.”

But arguably the most expressive and forceful way of conveying this truth is by labeling the performance of good works as our food!

John 4:34,35 – “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work”

Now, our life itself is tied to doing the will of God. Food is not optional. One must eat. While we may choose not to eat, the consequences – the discomfort of hunger – are anything but a choice. And if left to persist, starvation will ensue.

This truth was vividly displayed at the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Jesus was desperate to eat…He was desperate to do the Will of God: to save souls, to recover the lost sheep.

1. Jesus and the Samaritan woman

As recorded in John 4, Jesus, was resting at Jacob’s well from his travel to Galilee from Judea, when a Samaritan woman came to draw some water. Jesus was exhausted, thirsty and hungry from the trip, and His disciples had gone into town to buy some food.

When they came back, they found Him right in the middle of something: He just had an exchange with the woman in which He showed her that He was the Christ, and that He could offer her the living water that leads to eternal life.

John 4:27-29 – Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”

2. The hunger to do God’s Will

Note that the disciples were already amazed to see Jesus speaking with a Samaritan woman. That alone was peculiar, but what followed was far more disturbing for the disciples: they were about to witness the extent of Jesus’ hunger to do the Will of God, in ways they had never seen before. Although He was hungry, He refused to eat!

John 4:28-33 – Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  They left the town and made their way to him. In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”  The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?”

Although His disciples insisted, Jesus refused to eat. And the reason He gave was that He already had food to eat…

John 4:34 – “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,” Jesus told them.

Jesus was starving to do God’s Will, and the disciples found Him right in the midst of having this hunger satisfied.

Please note that the woman left the jar. She was to return, and she did indeed return, and this time, with many people!

This is the meal Jesus was waiting for. One soul (the Samaritan woman) and many more with her about to be saved. He saw a harvest, and that was an opportunity He could not pass.

3. But why was Jesus starving to do God’s Will in the first place?

While we could simply say that Jesus always did the Will of His Father, the reason Jesus was traveling in the first place is revealing.

John 4:1-3 – When Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard he was making and baptizing more disciples than John (though Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), he left Judea and went again to Galilee.

Jesus was traveling by constraint, because the Pharisees had learned about the expansion of His ministry, and that He was even making more disciples than John the Baptist. He had to stop doing the Will of God in Judea and leave town.

Then, just like an oasis in the middle of the desert, he saw a single person, even if it was just a woman, and a Samaritan at that. Everyone would have passed by, but Jesus was hungry, Jesus was starving to do the Will of God. While his disciples contemplated his physical hunger, He was eagerly waiting the return of the woman, and not just herself, but an entire crowd…a true feast!!

John 4:39 – Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.”

No wonder Jesus had said to His disciples…

John 4:32 – “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

4. Our discomfort when we do not do His Will

This state of discomfort resulting from not doing God’s Will is akin to the discomfort one feels when hungry. It is not a choice, it just is, because just as it is a basic necessity to eat, it is a basic necessity for God’s children to do His Will.

This discomfort may manifest itself in various ways. But one of the common ways is for us to feel unfulfilled. Christians who habitually resist the Will of the Spirit carry with them the heavy burden of feeling unfulfilled.

Another way is when feels saturated, when one keeps learning but does not release that Spiritual water erupting from their inner spring.

Your prayers are not like what they used to be, they lack intensity, connection, and passion. Your learning makes little progress, you open the Bible but you are unsettled, the drive to devour the scriptures is nowhere to be found, and no matter what you do, and how many times you pray, that overall discomfort is there and it grows…

…until you start releasing…until you start “doing” – not just learning – the Will of God…until you start eating!

John 4:34,35 – “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” 

My friends; I exhort you to recognize when you are hungry, when you are starving. Release, Release, Release! Do the Will of God, believe in Jesus and do not resist His Will.