Full But Not Fulfilled
The Huffington Post reports:
You’ve just eaten 10 Taco Bell tacos and drank a frozen Mountain Dew and you still feel suspiciously hungry. You’ve consumed about 1,880 calories, but your body isn’t satisfied. What’s happening?
Studies show that satiety, the mechanism that stops us from eating more than what we need, has less to do with caloric intake than it does with the intake of certain macronutrients - types of protein, carbohydrates, and fat - and the physical volume of food. We’re getting plenty of calories when we eat a full sleeve of Oreos, but we’re not getting the nutrients that our bodies need for high quality, sustainable energy. Even though it may feel like a large volume of food, it moves through us quickly - meaning the feeling of fullness fades after we eat.
They continue:
The satiety level of a food is partially due to its nutrient density, which refers to the ratio of nutrients to calories. Though highly caloric, junk foods supply a much lower amount of nutrients compared to the volume of food. In other words, all calories aren’t created equal. For 100 calories, we can eat about 15 cups of spinach or two Oreos. The spinach will physically fill our stomachs with more food, plus provide dietary fiber and vital nutrients. The Oreos, on the other hand, provide little more than intense levels of simple carbohydrates, which give us quick bursts of energy that don’t last.
Desiring less than Jesus’ righteousness results in being unfulfilled.
If we are hurting deep in our belly for Jesus’ presence and guidance, we are on the right path, feeling an intense longing … wanting Jesus’ righteousness as much as a starving person wants food and a parched person wants clean water to drink. Those who have that desire have the promise to be filled. It’s an emptiness which opens us to the filling of the Holy Spirit.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" (Matthew 5:6, NIV).
"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you" (Matthew 6:33).
"My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work" (John 4:34, NLT).
Right Game, Wrong Clothes
Most of us have great memories from our youth where we dreamed of emulating our favorite sports heroes. Who doesn't wanna aspire to play baseball like a Barry Bonds, basketball like LeBron James, hockey like Wayne Gretzgi, or football like Tom Brady?
Pass any park on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and you're likely to see a bunch of kids tossing a football around, running plays, and tackling each other to the ground like the Superbowl championship was at stake.
Maybe for Christmas or your birthday one year, your parents bought you a football uniform, complete with helmet, pads, and a jersey and pants from your favorite team. You'd have looked like a regular little football player.
Eventually, though, you'd have likely discovered that a football uniform does not make one a football player!!! You can't just dress up and make it so.
Some of us sitting in church pews today are not so unlike those young kids dressing up like their sports heroes. We want to be Christian. We wanna be a good Christian, maybe even a great one.
We come to church each Sunday dressed in our Sunday best. We carry our Bibles or our iPads with the latest Bible app. We maybe even mount the stage to lead songs of worship and praise.
We do all of the expected things of a church goer. But just as the old saying goes: Just because a mouse is in the cookie jar, it doesn’t make the mouse a cookie!!!
The only way we can be properply suited up for this thing we call the Christian life is to have a personal RELATIONSHIP with Jesus Christ the Risen Savior through faith in Him and His completed work on our behalf!
Don't show up to the right game in the wrong clothes. We need to be clothed in HIS righteousness alone!
"I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels" (Isaiah 61:10, NIV).
"... for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ" (Galatians 3:27, NIV).
"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV).
The Day of Fools
Mark Molloy with The TELEGRAPH reports:
A motorist from south London was left stunned when he woke up and found a disabled bay painted around his car, along with a £110 fine ($158 US Dollars) on his windscreen.
Matt Armstrong, who lives in West Norwood, thought he had been the victim of an April Fool’s Day prank when he stepped outside his door and saw the ticket.
The theatre worker said he was “absolutely livid” with Lambeth Council over the penalty charge notice.
“It must have been on March 31 they painted round it, because I saw it on April Fool’s Day,” he told Mail Online.
Ever feel like you’ve awakened and it’s a different world, a world where the old rules have been rewritten, where what was once right is now wrong, and what was wrong is now right? Do you ever feel like someone has repainted all the lines? No, it’s not April Fools Day, but it just may be the Day of Fools!
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20, NASB).