Fasting is Hungering For God | Jentezen Franklin

This is “Fasting is Hungering For God”. Fasting is hungering for God. It’s hunger that drives you and compels you. But it’s what you feed on that leads you to the place God has for you. In this message with Jentezen Franklin, identify what’s filling your hunger. If it’s not spiritual, it’s carnal. If it’s not leading you toward God, it may be drawing you away. To hear more inspiring messages from Jentezen Franklin, visit http://jentezenfranklin.org/watch?cid…

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>> Welcome to Kingdom Connection

we are in the middle of an

annual time of seeking God,

and fasting and prayer.

And you may say,

“Well, I don’t know about all

that fasting stuff, I don’t even

know if it works, and number two

it doesn’t sound like

it’s any fun.”

Well, I’ll give you the last

point, it’s not fun,

but it is powerful.

And my challenge to you today

is give it a try.

I believe God’s gonna speak

to you about His will

in a brand new year.

♪ ♪

>> “Fasting

is Hungering for God”.

And it sounds so simple,

but I wanna tell you that

when you fast,

some things that you probably

need to expect, that at some

point, the fun wears off.

At some point,

it becomes a grind.

At some point, you begin

to hear the voice,

“What’s the use?

This is stupid.

When you wanna quit the most,

that is the time that the fast

is being most effective.

Not only is God taking

notice of you,

but Satan is taking notice

of you when you’re fasting.

There is in your body something

called ghrelin.

G-H-R-E-L-I-N.

Ghrelin, in the simplest way

that I can say it,

is what makes

your stomach growl.

Have you ever been sitting,

maybe it’s about to happen

now already,

and this growl comes up,

and it’s embarrassing,

it’s an embarrassing noise

that comes from the middle

of your body, and you have

absolutely no control over it.

Well, ghrelin is this —

it’s this hormone,

it’s called the hunger hormone,

that causes your stomach

to growl and it’s also

what triggers the feeling

of hunger in your body.

Nobody has to go around and try

to remember to be hungry,

because you have ghrelin,

and ghrelin assaults you

about once every two

or three hours,

and he will — it grumbles

and it makes you know that

you need to eat.

It’s that growling noise

in your body that will only stop

embarrassing you if you feed it

a twinkie,

if you feed it a cookie,

if you give it a cheeseburger,

it’ll calm down.

And get used to that,

’cause you’re gonna hear it

a lot over the next few days.

Nobody tries to remember to eat,

because you have hunger hormones

that stir you up all

through the day,

and say, “Feed me.

You haven’t eaten lunch.

You haven’t eaten breakfast.

Feed me.”

How many of you have

good ghrelin that works?

Say, “Amen.”

So here’s what

I’m saying to you.

You’re gonna think that God

is recreating the miracle

that He did

in the Book of Joshua,

when He made

the sun stand still.

It’s gonna feel like the day

is not moving,

and you’re gonna look at your

watch, and you’re gonna think,

it’s gotta be 6:30

in the afternoon,

and it’s gonna be 9:30

in the morning,

and you’re gonna be so hungry,

and you’re gonna think,

time has stopped,

this is — I can’t do this,

this is nuts.

But that’s when the fast

is working.

That’s when you will begin

to understand what Jesus

did and what He commanded

that His disciples do in seasons

of fasting and prayer.

And my point is this,

I want God to give you such

a spiritual ghrelin hormone,

spiritual hunger,

for God that all through

this fast, there’s a stirring.

I need to read my Bible,

I need to pray,

I need to worship, I need Jesus.

I can’t have another year

like I had.

I don’t wanna go through

another year where I just kinda

go through the motions

of Christianity.

I want to hunger for God,

and I’m praying

that spiritually,

there’s a growl,

there’s a disturbing thing

on the inside of you that says,

“I need God.

My family needs God.

I need to fast,

and I need to pray.”

I’m praying that that will

become so real,

that you will reach a point

that your spiritual life

becomes as active

as your snack life.

I mean, your snack life,

when that hormone of hunger

gets going,

you’re always looking

for some chips,

looking for some salsa,

looking for some almonds,

looking for this,

looking for that.

I’m praying that your

spiritual hunger for God

is as active as your

hunger for snacks.

When you don’t pray,

you get just as miserable

as you feel when

you haven’t eaten.

And it begins to grip

you at some point,

this fun thing,

this thing, if you start

out with a motive,

“Well, I need to lose

a few little pounds, and so,

I’m gonna go,” —

I promise you, that’s gonna

wear off real quick

and your mind will tell you,

there’s a whole lot easier

ways to lose weight than this.

But when it does,

that’s when all of these

distractions are being

cleared away,

and Jesus is becoming real,

if you’ll let Him,

in your life in a powerful,

new way.

And that annoying,

gnawing hunger that we get when

we don’t eat physical food,

I’m telling you,

that now you’re gonna have

that same gnawing

in the spiritual dimension

for spiritual food.

And I pray that somebody says,

“I want a spiritual

hunger to grip me.”

I wanna ask you a question,

are you hungry after God?

I’m not willing to sit here

and just go through the motions,

because I’m hungry,

and fasting is hungering

for God.

All along in our journey,

we need to show God that

we hunger for Him.

Nothing else can satisfy.

In the Book of 2 Kings 7,

there’s the story,

and the Bible said that the city

was completely surrounded,

and Israel had been cut off,

and all the inhabitants

were under siege.

It was such a crisis that

they had run out of food,

the rations were gone,

and they were in a dire,

dire condition.

They became so desperate,

because they didn’t have

anything to eat,

they become so hungry

that the Bible said things

that would have been

unacceptable for consumption,

now, they’re fighting over.

They’re so hungry that

they’re fighting over things

that normally they would never

even consume and eat.

For example, the Bible said

the people in this city

became so hungry that

for 80 pieces of silver,

you could buy a donkey’s head,

and they would peel the skin

off of the donkey’s head

and cook it,

and that was how desperate they

were to have anything to eat.

And if that wasn’t bad enough,

the Bible gave another example,

and it said the people were so

hungry that for five pieces

of silver,

you could buy a cup

of dove’s dung.

Dove’s waste.

You see, when you’re hungry,

if you don’t consume

the right things, with —

to fill that hunger,

then you will begin to feed

on things you never said

you would consume.

I believe with all of my heart,

if you don’t direct

your spiritual hunger

in seasons to feed and hunger

after spiritual things,

that those hungers,

that if you don’t direct them

toward God and the Word

and worship and a greater

relationship with Jesus,

then those hungers will

direct you to the wrong things.

And you’ll begin to feed

on things on the internet,

and you’ll begin to feed

on things that are carnal,

that begin to leave your soul

lean and empty,

and you’re drying up,

and spiritually, it’s been

so long since you had a touch

of Jesus, because you’re feeding

only the carnal things,

and it’s really a God hunger

that’s crying out,

“Come back to Me.

Come and seek Me in fasting

and in prayer and draw near

to Me, and I’ll

draw near to you.”

But we don’t take time to

ever feed our hunger for God,

and when we try

to substitute junk food,

donkey’s heads and dove’s dung,

I believe that if you do not

address that spiritual hunger

for more of God,

you will start filling it

with more and more —

and we try so desperately

to fill what only God can fill,

and it’s another thing,

another trip,

another entertainment,

another distraction,

another let’s go to the game,

let’s go to the lake,

let’s go to the beach,

let’s go to the mountains,

let’s try this,

let me get that house,

let me get that car,

let me try this new project.

And we keep trying to fill

the God hunger,

but there is a gnawing

and a grumbling inside

that says, “Nothing can meet

the need of God in your life

but seeking Him.”

And when He comes,

when you seek Him first,

then all of these things

are added unto you.

The lepers in —

the Bible said that there were

lepers outside of that city.

In other words,

they were outcast, they were —

I mean, it’s bad

to be inside the city,

literally, where people

are buying and eating

donkey’s heads and dove’s dung,

and these guys were

even more desperate,

because they were lepers,

and that disease would cause

literal parts of your body

to fall off,

and spiritually speaking,

their life was falling

to pieces.

They were outcast.

They were told, “You’re not

even important enough

to be on the inside

of the rest of us.”

But they were hungry,

so hungry that they said,

“I can’t,” —

they asked this question,

“Why sit here until we die?”

See, the only thing that will

move you out of your

comfort zone,

out of complacency,

into the things that only God

can do for you,

this is what the Lord told me to

tell you, He said,

“The only thing that will get

you there is hunger.”

The only thing that lifted

them out of their self-pity

was hunger.

The only thing that lifted

them out of their excuses,

“We might as well,

nobody else is doing anything,

we’re all dying,

so we’ll die here together.”

The only thing that pushed

them was hunger.

The only thing that caused them

to begin to move toward their

destiny and a brighter day

was hunger,

and hunger will drive you

and push you,

and fasting

is hungering for God.

The Bible said that there

were four of them,

and I think probably one of ’em

was sitting there,

and he had tacos on his mind.

One was sitting there,

and he had fried chicken

on his mind,

and one was sitting there,

and he had Krispy Kreme donuts

on his mind.

But one stood up and said,

“I can’t sit here.

I can’t have another year

like I had.

We’re dying.

Why sit here until we die?”

He says, “You know,

if we entered the city,

he’ll keep us alive,

and we’ll live,

but if they kill us, we’ll die.”

Now, listen to this thinking.

Listen to this.

“Now therefore come,

let us surrender to the army

of the Syrians.

If they keep us alive,”

this guy was a college graduate

I’m sure: “We shall live.

If they kill us, we shall die.”

That’s brilliant, isn’t it?

But why sit here until we die?

That hunger began to drive them.

He began to hunger, and he said,

“There’s gotta be more.”

And it was the hunger

that began to move him toward

the direction of the plan

and the purpose

and the miracle

that God had for him,

and I believe with all

of my heart that there

are things that God will

do for people when they

hunger for Him,

when they fast and they pray,

fasting is hungering for God,

and when you begin to hunger

for God, suddenly,

you move up out

of the challenges

and the comfort zone,

and you move up out

of self-pity,

and up out of depression

and hopelessness.

And the hunger began to move,

and they began to take steps,

four of them,

toward the enemy’s camp.

Things even got more desperate

inside the walls of that city,

so much so that the Bible

gives one more astonishing

description.

They became so hungry that

the Bible said they began

to boil and eat their

own babies, their own flesh

and blood, and make bargains,

and say,

“We eat your child today,

we eat my child tomorrow.”

See, we don’t understand hunger.

We don’t understand hunger.

I’m talking about people

who were so desperate

with hunger.

And what I want you

to understand about that is,

is that when people do not

fill the spiritual hunger

for God with spiritual things,

in homes, in families,

in marriages,

when they only feed on donkey’s

heads and dove’s dung

and carnality and think

that’s enough to hold

your marriage

and bless your family,

when you only feed on carnal

things and you don’t feed

spiritual hunger for God

with a hunger for God,

then guess what?

You start turning

on one another.

You start devouring one another.

You start attacking one another,

and the enemy comes

and divides families

and divides homes,

and it’s really a sign

of a growl for somebody who

needs to begin to consume

spiritual appetite and get

a hunger for God that

changes our attitude,

that opens our eyes

to the bigger things,

not just devouring one another.

I’m praying that somebody

will hear me preaching

that will say,

“I cannot have another

year like I had.

I cannot sit in this addiction

for another 12 months.

I refuse to live

like this again.

Something’s gotta give,

I’m desperate,

and I’ve got a hunger for God

that only God can fix

and God can fulfill and God can

do in my family

and in my home.”

The Bible said

in Lamentations 4:9:

“To be slain with the sword

is better than to be slain

with hunger.”

One translation said:

“It’s better to go down fighting

than to sit there and die.”

For good or bad,

hunger drives you.

Esau came home from

a hunting trip in the Bible,

and the Bible said he was

so hungry that he was

almost home, but his brother,

Jacob, came out and he said,

“Listen, I’ll offer you a bowl

of beans,”

spiritual hunger,

“But I’ll offer you a bowl

of beans if you’ll give me

the birthright.”

And in a moment of weakness,

because he did not feed

the hunger for God,

he tried to put carnal things

in for the hunger of God,

and that’s why fasting

is so important,

that’s why it’s not

for people all around you,

but it’s not for you.

This is for you, sir.

This is for you, dad.

This is for you,

business person.

This is for you,

college student.

This is for you.

God says, “There are things

that hunger will take you to

that you will never reach

until you hunger for Me,

because I have it all.

I am the one who lifts one up

and pulls another down.

I am the one,” and you know

what He promised in Matthew 5?

“They that hunger and thirst

for righteousness

shall be filled.”

The Bible said that Esau

lost his birthright,

because he fed that real hunger

with donkey’s heads,

so-to-speak, and dove’s dung,

instead of a hunger for God.

I close with this.

What got the prodigal son

out of the pig pen?

What made him come back

home to the father?

What was it?

It wasn’t the smell

or the stench.

It wasn’t the disappointment

of the friends

who abandoned him

after he had spent

all of his money.

It wasn’t the filth

that he was living in.

None of those things got him

on the path back

to the father’s house.

It was one thing that brought

him back to the father.

In Luke 15:17,

he asked a question.

“How many of my father’s

servants have bread enough

to spare,” listen:

“And I perish with hunger?”

The thing that drove

the prodigal son up and out

of the pig pen and the filth,

back to the beauty and the love

and the grace of the father’s

house, he said it himself.

“I am hungry.”

It’s hunger that will

cause prodigal sons

and daughters, when somebody

is fasting for them,

hunger will wake them up

in the pig pen.

Hunger will wake them up

in their addictions.

Hunger will wake up

the backslider, and if they

won’t fast for themselves,

when we begin to fast,

when we begin to pray

for our families,

for our sons, for our daughters,

when we do that, God says,

“I will use hunger as the force

that drives and pushes them

on to the path back

to the father’s house.”

When nothing else works,

pleading and trouble

with the law and all kinds

of things, and all kinds

of ramifications of that life,

when nothing else works,

Jesus put it like this

in Mark 9: “This kind cometh

not out but by fasting

and prayer.”

There’s some of our family

members, our friends,

our associates, people that

you work with,

people that you do life with,

and they’re lost,

and they’re on their way

to hell,

and the only thing that’s

gonna get ’em out of the muck

and the mire,

and on the path back

to the Father’s house,

is hunger.

And fasting is hungering

for God, and when a church,

with thousands and thousands

of people here and the internet

and at all of our campuses,

comes together

and my stomach’s growling

at 1 AM, but your stomach

is growling at 2 AM,

and somebody else that

has a growl going on,

and it’s like a total irritant

to the devil and demons,

and they — the scripture said,

“This kind of spirit will only

loose and release its grip

on people when people

are fasting and praying.”

[applause]

♪ ♪

>> I love the fact

that every time we preach

the Gospel on television

and now we’re on daily

somewhere, every day

around the world.

I get a chance to give people

an opportunity

to say, “Jesus, I want you

to be my Savior.”

Say that name,

“Jesus, I believe on you.

Save me, deliver me from these

things that are taking the life

out of me.

I need you to change me.

I don’t like the way

that I’ve turned out.

Things have happened,

I’m bitter, I’m angry, I’m mad.

Heal me, Jesus.”

Just say that.

He’ll save you, He’ll touch you.

And if you prayed that prayer

we would love to

hear from you today.

We want you to speak up

and let us know.

Go online or call the number

that’s on the screen

and you’ll be able to go even

deeper with free material

that we’re gonna

put in your hands.

In our closing moments,

I wanna share with you

an opportunity

that you have in the nation

of Israel to be a blessing.

The next step for our ministry

is to keep pouring into

the same region in Israel.

These people on the Gaza strip

are constantly being hit

with rockets.

I’m talking about it’s

a daily occasion.

And so we went to this community

and we spent some time there,

and they said our number one

goal, or our number one need

is to build more bomb shelters.

Our goal is to help them

to comfort God’s people

in the region that is a very

very dangerous place to have

family and children.

But you see, these Jewish people

believe that they’re

fulfilling prophecy,

that they are to stand

and defend that land because

to them it’s more than property

it’s the Holy Land that God

has given them.

And we’re grabbing them by

the hand and partnering

with them.

We’ve already started

we have a beautiful relationship

with our friends

at the Jewish National Fund,

one of the largest non-profit

Jewish organizations

in the world and they do

such a beautiful work,

and we are partnering with them

to build these community centers

that are bomb shelters

uniting the generations

right there in that region.

Thank you so much

for helping us,

every dime that you give

is used for three things.

Number one, is to preach

the Gospel through this telecast

all over the world.

Number two, we just keep

putting out inspirational

programs and material that

change people’s lives,

and thirdly, great projects

like the one in the Eshkol

region of Israel.

Thank you.

Lord, speak to your people today

you know the needs

and we praise you.

Bless every one who says “Yes,

I’ll partner

with that ministry this year.”

In Jesus’ name, amen.

Thank you and God bless you.

>> ANNOUNCER: Imagine living

under the fear and stress

of constant enemy attack.

Jewish communities bordering

the Gaza strip have 15 seconds

to run for their lives

and to take shelter from

the ceaseless barrage

of rocket attacks.

That 15 seconds is the same

for a toddler,

or a Holocaust survivor.

Now you can be a part

of fulfilling Biblical prophecy

in the Holy Land by comforting

Jewish families living

within range of rocket attacks

and incendiary fire balloons.

With your best gift

to Jentezen Franklin

Media Ministries this month,

you’ll help us go above

and beyond to bring comfort

with grace to help these

precious Jewish families

as we join

with the Jewish National Fund

to help build a fortified

bomb shelter in Moshav Ohad.

This community

is a mile and a half

from the Gaza border,

and children and seniors

will be able to utilize

this safe shelter

when the sirens signal

another attack.

As our thank you

for your gift of $50 or more,

you may request the “Rooted”

bundle today as you give

and experience every good thing

God wants to release

in and through you

this new year.

With your gift of $500 or more,

you may request

the “Rooted” gift set.

You can have a place

to write down everything

God speaks to you and does

in your life

with the Rooted journal.

With your best gift

of $1,000 or more

you can experience

God’s best in your life

with this hand picked

“Rooted” collection.

And to show our thanks,

we’ll plant a tree in Israel

in your honor.

You can be a part of the miracle

of fulfilling prophecy

in the Holy Land,

and bring comfort with grace

to God’s people in Israel today.

♪ ♪

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[applause]

>> Cherise and I

wanna invite you to join us

on our Holy Land Tour.

It’s an amazing trip,

unlike anything

you’ve ever experienced,

and we’ll be on the trip,

we get on the busses,

our family will be on there,

and I promise you,

it will change your life.

You’ve been thinking about it,

you’ve been praying about it,

this is the year to go.

God’s gonna open your eyes

to things you’ve never

seen and experienced before

in the holy land.

Get signed up today.

>> We hope you’ve enjoyed

this teaching

by Jentezen Franklin,

and thank you

for your continued support

of this ministry.

Your prayers

and financial support

make these programs possible.

♪ ♪