The Hunger of the Soul

THE HUNGER OF THE SOUL

In John Chapter four when Jesus sat by the well and asked a woman for a drink of water and then offered her the wellspring of everlasting life he gave her healing for the emotional thirst of her soul and an understanding of the Father’s love for her. She had entered a new life of hope and faith that was to last forever.
Then his disciples arrived with food for them all to share. 

John 4:27 The disciples were surprised to find Jesus talking to a woman, but none of them asked him why, or what they had been discussing.
Then the woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village and told everyone, "Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Christ?"  So the people came streaming from the village wanting to see him.
Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus to eat. "No," he said, "I have some food you know nothing about."
"Who brought it to him?" the disciples asked each other.
Then Jesus explained: "My food comes from doing the will of God who sent me, and from finishing his work. 

Just as Jesus had taught the woman at the well the difference between spiritual thirst and natural thirst Jesus was now about to teach his disciples the difference between spiritual hunger and natural hunger. He explained that his spiritual food was the energy that empowered his soul to live a life of surrendering his will to the will of his Father.
What Jesus was saying to them was this. ‘I don’t need any natural food right now, as I have just been nourished and energised by doing what the father wanted me to do here in this place, and there’s more here yet for all of us to do’.
Jesus knew that the crowds of Samaritans from the village were on their way and that he and his disciples would soon be ministering to them because of the woman’s testimony to them, and when Jesus saw the people running down the hill he said to the disciples.

Vs. 35 ‘Do you think the work of harvesting will not begin until the summer ends four months from now? Look around you! Vast fields of human souls are ripening all around us and are white and ready now for reaping.’

Jesus told them that they didn’t have to wait the usual four months between the sowing and reaping seasons of the harvest but that a spiritual harvest was ready now for reaping. That’s like saying to people in these days ‘Don’t say only one hundred and twenty more shopping days till Christmas – your Christmas presents are waiting for you now.
When Jesus spoke about the fields already showing the white ripe harvest it has been commented that he was describing the stark visual image that the disciples saw happening in front of them at that very moment as the hordes of white robed Samaritans streamed from the village and ran down the hillside to meet Jesus.
Many Samaritan men even today on religious occasions wear what is called a Jallaba - a long white gown that has 22 buttons down the front.

Vs. 40 When they came out to see him at the well, they begged him to stay at their village; and he did, for two days, long enough for many of them to believe in him after hearing him. Then they said to the woman, "Now we believe because we have heard him ourselves, not just because of what you told us. He is indeed the Saviour of the world."

This was a time when many people of the nation of Samaria received and believed in the hope of salvation from God himself through the man that they now acknowledged as ‘The Christ’. In their Aramaic version of the Torah (Genesis to Deuteronomy) their word for Messiah was ‘taheb’, and we read in Deuteronomy that Moses had spoken to Israel about sending another prophet/saviour/taheb like himself at an appointed time. Moses said this just before he died and just before Israel crossed over the Jordan into the Promised Land.

Deuteronomy 18:15-18 The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet/taheb like me from among you, from your brothers, and it is to him you shall listen…

Moses was not talking about Joshua, Jeshua, but about Jesus, Jeshua – The Saviour of the world, and when Israel went into the promised land Joshua set up the tabernacle of Moses on mount Gerizim, and this makes the meeting of Jesus with the Samaritans from the village at Mount Gerizim that day a very significant fulfillment of prophecy for those Samaritans. 

The Samaritans had always held to this hope of salvation and the hope was made alive again when they met Jesus their Taheb (Christ/Messiah) and they acknowledged him as ‘saviour of the world ‘. They then spent two days hearing him speak to them face to face at the village at Gerazim. Their hope in his salvation had to remain as a hope in their hearts until later on when we read in the Book of Acts that Philip the deacon/evangelist went to Samaria to preach the Gospel of the death and resurrection of Jesus to them and they saw the miraculous works of God through Philip that followed his preaching.

Acts 8:4 But the believers who had fled Jerusalem went everywhere preaching the Good News about Jesus! Philip, for instance, went to the city of Samaria and told the people there about Christ… 9 A man named Simon had formerly been a sorcerer there for many years; he was a very influential, proud man because of the amazing things he could do--in fact, the Samaritan people often spoke of him as the Messiah… 13 Then Simon himself believed and was baptized and began following Philip wherever he went, and was amazed by the miracles Philip did. 14 When the apostles back in Jerusalem heard that the people of Samaria had accepted God's message, they sent down Peter and John, and as soon as they arrived, they began praying for these new Christians to receive the Holy Spirit, for as yet he had not come upon any of them. For they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John laid their hands upon these believers, and they received the Holy Spirit. When Simon saw this--that the Holy Spirit was given when the apostles placed their hands upon people's heads--he offered money to buy this power.
"Let me have this power too, “he exclaimed hungrily, “so that when I lay my hands on people, they will receive the Holy Spirit!"
This man Simon was severely rebuked by Peter, who discerned the pride and corruption in Simon’s hunger for the power of the Holy Spirit, and Peter told Simon that he could have no part in any of this for his heart was not right with God. 

When Jesus and the disciples met with the white robed Samaritans who had run down the hill and then spent time with them in that Samaritan village the disciples learned firsthand from Jesus the lesson of the spiritual food that was the energy that empowered the hungry soul to live a life of surrendering the will to the will of the Father. They were taught by Jesus at that time that the authority and power that they would receive on the day of Pentecost through the Holy Spirit would not come from a hunger for power, (as we saw with Simon the sorcerer) but from a hunger to do the will of the Father in the laying down of their lives for others. (Matthew 20:20).

In these days where mental and emotional fatigue is being felt by so many, the spiritual food that sustains our souls and releases the power of God in our lives comes by the readiness to surrender our will to the good will of God as well as the doing of his will. That readiness and that doing it comes about by keeping our mind not on our power (try and keep that out of the picture) but on God’s power which is always supernaturally at work for God’s greatest good as we faithfully serve God and sacrificially serve others in this way. 
God does not give us his supernatural power to achieve our own objectives but to achieve his, and some present-day practices of presuming the power to gain financial prosperity and personal miracles simply by claiming a Scripture verse can lead to errors that corrupt the integrity and character of leaders and congregations. This has sadly been the case in the Western Church and in some parts of Asia for many years. Jesus said ‘It is the Spirit that gives life - The words that I speak are spirit and they are life’. It has to be more than simply words we read. (John 6:63)

There are even misleading doctrines that teach that God has delegated all authority to us and that he needs us to pray for things before he is able to work them from Heaven. 
What God has given us is authority and power over the works of darkness and deception as we ‘do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before our God’ (Micah 6:8), and ‘become transformed by the renewing of our minds to know the good and acceptable and perfect will of God’ (Romans 12:2).

We can cry out to him in our suffering, press upon him in our times of need, plead to him in our appeal for justice, and we can be assured that in all these things he hears us. Why not then in all these things yield to him and say not my will but yours be done?
How much better is this than scrambling our minds with one anxious thought after another searching for answers, or conjuring up guesswork about the future with our imaginations?
How much better is this also than exerting our willpower to make decisions based on emotional reactions to circumstances rather than surrendering our will to the certainty that God’s wisdom will be forthcoming as we wait for his peace to settle our soul?
The greatest power that we are given access to is the power of God’s love to us and through us, back to God and on to other people.
There is no more worthwhile way to spend time with God than to engage with him in thanking him for his love. This is a response of faith to his continual active loving of us - and this faith pleases him and is our way of loving him back. When we engage with God in this way we are feeding the spiritual hunger with the food that satisfies and energises our souls.