After fasting for most of this January, I have been well-acquainted with hunger. Honestly, anytime I go more than six hours without a meal my body convinces me I’m dying. I can almost hear my stomach crying out, “Feed me, Jasmine. I’m starving!” Going without food – whether intentionally or not – is uncomfortable and painful. No one wants to do it and if you don’t have food for an extended period – we’re talking a few months here – it’s deadly. Why?

The reason is because our bodies were created to run on food. Food is where we get the nutrients we need to support our bodies, to sustain life. It’s analogous to putting gas in the car. We can’t function without it and if by some chance we try to, our bodies cry out, warning us that something’s not right. We get the tummy growling, hunger pangs, nausea, headaches, and more. If we ignore the cues long enough, our bodies go into starvation mode. Starvation is the process of our bodies beginning to die due to lack of food or nourishment.

Now most of us in the Western world are not literally starving. For the most part, we’re eating pretty good. But I’ve noticed that even though outwardly we’re well-fed, inwardly, we look like those poor starving children that come on the late-night infomercials asking for donations. Spiritually we are skin and bones, dying from lack of nourishment. Literally, starving.

To understand what I mean when I say “spiritually starving” let’s define a few things. When God created us, He made us tri-part beings (one being, made of three parts). We ARE a spirit, we HAVE a soul, and we LIVE in a physical body. The physical body is that part of us we can see (our skin and bones, face, stature, etc). Our soul is comprised of our mind, our will, and our emotions. My pastor refers to this as our ‘thinker, our chooser, and our feeler’. Our spirit is the true us. It is the center of our being. It is the part of us that was created by God to be in contact with Him and to receive Him. When we die, our physical body deteriorates but our soul and spirit continue to live on, either in heaven or in hell.

To be spiritually starving is to be separated and/or disconnected from God. Jesus explains in Matthew 4:4 that more than just natural food, we need contact with God in order to truly live. In this chapter Jesus is on the tail end of a 40-day fast and Satan has come to tempt Him to sin.

² And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. ³ Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”⁴ But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”  ~ Matthew 4:2-4 (emphasis added)

Did you catch that? Satan came to Jesus and tried to exploit the fact that He was hungry for physical food. I mean, after 40 days of not eating, I’m sure Jesus was unimaginably hungry. But He understood that more important than natural food was spiritual food. Jesus gave us a key to life here. Yes, we need to feed the physical part of us, but to truly thrive and have real life, we have to feed on God’s word. We can’t expect to live whole lives both here and in eternity without getting God’s word. To navigate this life and eternity well, we must be in contact with God through prayer, the study of His word, and the preaching of His word.

So how do you know if you’re spiritually starving? Well, if you haven’t spent any time with God in prayer or His word, that’s your first clue (even if you don’t feel the effects yet), but there are other symptoms of a spiritually starved life. Depression, anxiety, fear, laziness, anger, promiscuity are all symptoms. As well as going through life aimlessly with no purpose or vision; feeling far from God; falling into sin repeatedly no matter how hard you try to keep yourself out of it, and all other manner of dysfunction and mental anguish.

I can already anticipate someone reading this and scoffing. You may be thinking your life is good. You’re not experiencing any of the things mentioned above. You don’t have a relationship with God and you don’t really want one or think it’s necessary to have one. I have to caution you though. This is what the Bible says.

You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.

~ Revelation 3:17

God through His word cautions us not to be deceived by how our lives are doing outwardly. We are not to hang our hope on how well life is going for us in this world. You may be totally content outside of a relationship with God, but your contentment in your false reality will still lead you to a place of spiritual death – eternally separated from God.

Please hear me and understand, I don’t say this from a place of judgment or hate. The truth of the matter is, God created us out of Himself, for Himself. His plan was to love us and to be loved by us. He alone knows what we need. He alone HAS what we need. A life spent outside of seeking Him is on a path to death and destruction. I implore you, connect with God today!

You may be wondering, well, how do I connect with God and become spiritually healthy? There are a few ways but I’m going to focus on just two today. Number 1: you must be born again and number 2: you must connect with God through prayer and the study of His word every day.

I know that for many people “Christianese” can be confusing. What do we mean when we say someone needs to “get saved” or be “born again?” These terms are two ways of saying the same thing: surrender your life and your heart to Jesus. Choose to live a life that will follow His word and obey His leading.

The Bible tells us that we are all born spiritually dead. This means we are born separated from God and on our way to hell because we are born into a sinful nature. This sin nature was passed down to us from the first man and woman to ever live, Adam and Eve. They were born sinless but sinned in the garden of Eden and died spiritually.  Ever since then everyone born into the world has inherited that dead, sin nature. Thankfully for us, Jesus came onto the scene. He is God’s only Son – fully God and fully human. He lived a sinless life but took our sin onto Himself, got on the cross and gave His life for ours. What’s more, He went to Hell in our place before rising from the dead. He is now in Heaven seated at the right hand of God the Father until He returns to the earth again.

So, what does that mean for us? Jesus took our sin and our punishment and gave us His sinlessness and His righteousness so that we no longer have to live separated from God. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, the Bible says we are made alive to God and can enter His presence again. This is salvation. This is step one. (*There is a prayer for salvation at the end of this post)

We can not connect with God through His word without step one. I Corinthians 1:18 says that  “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing”; and in I Corinthians 2:14 it says that an unsaved person “does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.”

In a nutshell, what this means is that a person who has not been born again and filled with God’s Holy Spirit is literally unable to understand spiritual truth as God reveals it in His word. However, once you have been born again and filled with God’s Spirit, connecting with God through His word in Bible study, prayer and preached messages is vitally important. God’s word is the place from which we receive direction, correction, warning, love, identity, and everything else we need from Him. If you are not connecting with Him daily, your spirit is wasting away; just as your body would begin to perish if you weren’t feeding it every day.

So, here’s a challenge: make it a priority to connect with God every day. If you can spend an hour or two (or more), that’s great! But even if you can’t give god a full hour, at least give Him 15 minutes a day and try to work your way up to longer stretches. Wake up a little earlier or use your lunch break. Carve out whatever time you can to pray or open up your Bible or a Bible app on your phone (the YouVersion Bible app is my personal favorite).

I’m telling you there is nothing better than connecting with God. My hardest times have been sustained by the connection I’ve made sure to form with Him over the past 17 years. God is so crazy faithful, and He desires nothing more than to be with you and give you real life. Will you make yourself available?

Scriptures about salvation:

“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” ~ Romans 10:9

“For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” ~ Romans 10:13

“He that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out.” ~ John 6:37B

Prayer for Salvation

(Read over this first to make sure you agree, then pray it out loud to God)

“Dear God, I want to be a part of your family. You said in Your Word that if I acknowledge that You raised Jesus from the dead, and that I accept Him as my Lord and Savior, I would be saved. So God, I now say that I believe You raised Jesus from the dead and that He is alive and well. I believe that He died for my sins that I might have eternal life. I accept Him now as my personal Lord and Savior. I accept my salvation from sin right now. In Jesus’ name, Amen”