I Just Lost My Appetite
You can pray all you want, be touched by the best known healer in the
land. You can go to conferences with all the best known preachers,
teachers, and speakers. No matter what you do, until you lose your
appetite for sin you will continue to sin.
Proverbs 23:1-7. We may never have dinner with rulers such as the governor
but the lesson we learn is be careful about the good looking temptations
that are set before you. Verse 2 instructs us to kill our appetite before
it kills us. Each of us has an appetite for something today that is either
not good for us or the way we approach it is not good for us. The world
rulers bring it to us on a platter mainly through TV and music. And that
appetite is in some way killing our health, finances, and relationships.
We must identify that appetite and kill it before it kills us. Verse 3.
What we have an appetite for is deceitful because we feel the more we get
it the better off we are and the more satisfied we will be. The appetite
for sin is never satisfied it comes back so it must be destroyed.
A ruler is someone or something that has power over you. For example, if
we don’t follow the Bible, sin is our ruler. It has power over us. Verses
6,7 indicate we’re talking about a wicked person who has power, but their
heart is not with us. We’re attracted to them, but their motives and
intentions are evil. They’ll use and abuse us. These businesses that offer
promotional games have no intention of us ever winning the grand prize.
But what is this powerful attraction that lures us to what they have when
we know their intentions are not the best for us?
Rulers rule because we have an appetite to get what they have but they
have a plan to get what we have. A plan always beats an appetite. A plan
is calculated and thought out. An appetite is anxious and impulsive. The
rabbit has an appetite but the person with the rabbit trap has a plan. The
fish has an appetite but the person with the fishhook has a plan. As long
as we have a greater appetite for sin than we do for God’s plan of
salvation, we’ll get trapped and eaten. II Corinthians 2:11 says we are
not ignorant of the devil’s devices. But until we kill our appetites we’ll
keep falling for the same trap. Just knowing how the enemy works is not
enough to defeat him. We think of the devil as being sneaky but as long as
we have an appetite for sin, he doesn’t have to trick us! He can boldly
set sin in front of us and say, “Bon appetite!” Our appetite is the
devil’s biggest device! He’s not slick, we’re just hungry for the wrong
things in the wrong ways!
Our appetite for sin puts us right in the enemy’s plan. If we kill that
appetite we’re in God’s plan found in Jeremiah 29:11. The heart of God is
with us and His intentions are honorable. When we eat what He places
before us, things turn out fine, like God expected. When we keep a sinful
appetite, things never seem to turn out and we come to an unexpected end.
So the key is to kill our appetite for the things the world dangles in
front of us. This cancels the enemy’s plan before it kills us. The enemy
gives a little and takes a lot. He’ll tempt us with what looks like the
good life, but then traps us in what seems like the jaws of death. He
understands the principle of sowing and reaping better than most
Christians do. It doesn’t matter if it’s a drug dealer giving away free
samples on the corner or the lady giving away free pizza samples in the
grocery store. They know that by getting us to develop an appetite for
their product they will eventually get us hooked. They are armed with a
plan and all we have is an appetite.
Jesus was able to be tempted. That meant He had an appetite. But He killed
His appetite and remained sinless. Jesus represents a process that we see
in nature. John 12:24. The corn must die so that abundant life springs
forth. The farmer can eat the corn and satisfy his immediate appetite. Or
he can plant the corn and bring forth an abundant harvest. Likewise, Jesus
suppressed His appetite. He died and was planted in the ground. But when
He rose, He brought forth a harvest of eternal life for the entire world!
When the appetite for sin dies, that’s when we really begin to live.
Proverbs 23:8. How do we lose our appetite for sin? If you eat something
and your stomach violently rejects it, you’re through with that food -
sometimes forever! Every time you even think about it, it almost makes you
sick. We have to develop that same gag effect spiritually towards sin. Sin
is fun at first. That’s why we have such sweet words when we’re enjoying
it, “Oh this is wonderful!” But when the consequences hit home, we get
sick to our stomachs and we lose the sweet words and replace them with
cursing, rationalizing, blaming, denial, anger, and resentment. But after
awhile we’re right back into our sin again. Proverbs 26:11. We eat, it
tastes good, we get sick, we spit it up, and then we eat it again. It’s a
vicious and disgusting habit first known to animals, but mastered by
humans. Just like the dog, we tell ourselves, “There’s something still
there! I have to go back to it! I can’t leave it alone!”
In the natural, when we see vomit, we lose our appetite and we get away
from it. Spiritually, when we see vomit we get hungry and we run to it. We
see the vomit of broken homes and marriages caused by spending too much
time chasing a career, but that doesn’t turn our stomach. We see the vomit
of diseases like Aids and unwanted pregnancies, but that doesn’t destroy
our appetite. We see the vomit of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart
disease, and obesity but that doesn’t turn our stomachs.
When we see spiritual throw up why don’t we act like kids and just run?
Every day we see people bent over the toilet bowl of life just spewing out
their guts. There are no more sweet words. “How’s it going?” Ugh ugh, my
spouse is acting up. Ugh ugh, my boss is acting up. Ugh ugh, my sugar is
acting up. Ugh ugh, my money is all messed up. Everybody is sick because
we have an insatiable appetite for the things of the world.
Job 6:30. Job asks a question that really gives the answer to our sick
attraction to vomit. There is so much sin around us that we’ve lost our
taste to discern perverse things. So we taste and proceed to swallow,
hook, line, and sinker the bait of the enemy. We’ve lost our ability to
see that sin is bad for us. How does this happen? I Corinthians 15:33.
Don’t fool yourself! Paul is saying it’s easy to think this ain’t the
answer, but this is it! Have you lost your manners? When we think of
manners, we think of social habits. Manners in this verse, however, speaks
of moral habits. Have you lost your manners? When you lose your good
manners you eat like a pig and get sick as a dog! When Jesus was tempted
by the devil you get the impression that He was very mannerable about it.
For everything the devil tried to communicate to Jesus, Jesus calmly said,
“It is written”. No matter what the enemy tried to communicate to Jesus,
Jesus did not lose His appetite for the word of God! He kept his manners,
His moral habits.
If you don’t maintain your spiritual manners, you’ll crave the things that
the people around you crave. This is why it is so important to be careful
who you hang around, who you listen to, and what you read. Your appetite
is fed by your environment. If you have an appetite for lust, you can pray
all you want but if your environment is full of TV, videos, and movies,
you’re probably not going to see a change in your appetite. That evil is
being constantly communicated to you and you are fooling yourself if you
think it doesn’t affect you. Do you actually think companies would pay
millions of dollars to put their commercials on TV if nobody was affected
by them? Do you actually think movie and TV show producers would spend
billions of dollars on filth if people didn’t have an appetite for it?
The vast majority of TV and movies is vomit! All it does is draw you
further away from the godly things that have been communicated to you.
Hollywood is getting filthy rich and all we’re getting is filthy. Because
we have an appetite for sin, they can string us out on anything they want.
Why? Because they have a plan and all we have is an appetite!
Evil communications corrupt good manners. But if you are around people and
things that are promoting God you develop manners and lose your appetite
for sin.
Psalms 34:8 says, “O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the
man that trusteth in him.” The more you get an appetite for God the weaker
your appetite for sin becomes. When God gives you a spiritual appetite,
just like in the natural, there are certain things that you smell, hear or
see that just turn your stomach. All of us have experienced something
which the very thought of turns our stomach. Our prayer should be, O God
give me that same feeling for anything that I have an appetite for that is
not pleasing to you.
If you’re having trouble making sense of your faith, ask yourself, what is
my real appetite for? Is it really for God or just the stuff that God can
give me? When you have a true appetite for God, God delights in blessing
you. But when your appetite is not for God and you’re playing church, you
spoil God’s appetite. Amos 5:21. There worship was a stench in the
nostrils of God that made Him sick. God was saying, “Don’t bring your
offerings and sacrifices to me as if I can be bribed. You can’t spend all
your time, energy, effort, and money chasing worldly appetites and then
come to church on Sunday singing Jesus is all the world to me! You’re
lying and it makes me sick to my stomach!
Ecclesiastes 6:7. When our appetite is for sin, it will never be filled.
We’ll spend our entire life looking for one more high, thrill, or
adventure that will beat the last one. But there is never a last one
because the appetite for sin is never satisfied.
Isaiah 29:8 describes it best. One day you’re going to awake in the midst
of pursuing whatever it is you’re pursuing in life and you’re going to
realize this awful feeling in your gut. Because God has saved your soul,
but you’ve only been feeding your flesh. Now your soul has an appetite
because instead of hungering for God you’ve been fighting against Him.
Leave me alone God, just let me have my fun. Instead of climbing up Mount
Zion, you’ve been doing all you can to slide down.
When we think about all that God has done for us; when we think about how
it hurts Him to see us become enslaved again to sin after He gave His only
son, we should just grab our stomachs and tell the devil, “I just lost my
appetite! All of a sudden I don’t want what I thought I wanted. All of a
sudden I’m feeling a little bit queasy about continuing on the way I have.
All of a sudden I’m starting to have flashbacks about how sick I got last
time I ate what you offered me. My stomach was in knots for days, weeks,
months and I still haven’t fully gotten over what happened to me. You
caused me to throw up on my health, my finances and my relationships, and
on my God. Thanks, but no thank you Satan, I just lost my appetite.” Amen!