HE
ALONE SATISFIES THE SOUL
BREAD
1 The LORD is my
shepherd, I shall not be in want. 2 He
makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths
of righteousness for his name's sake. 4 Even
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for
you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the
presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all
the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Psalm 23:1-6
(NIV)
1 Praise the LORD,
O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the LORD,
O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-- 3 who
forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and
crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who
satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the
eagle’s. Psalm 103:1-5 (NIV)
8 Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men,
9 for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. Psalm 107:8-9 (NIV)
9 for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. Psalm 107:8-9 (NIV)
1 O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul
thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is
no water. 2 I have seen you in
the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3 Because your love is better than life, my
lips will glorify you. 4 I will praise you as long as I live, and
in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 My
soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth
will praise you. Psalm 63:1-5 (NIV)
25 There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures
beyond number-- living things both large and small. 26 There the ships go to and fro, and the
leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. 27 These
all look to you to give them their food at the proper time.
28 When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. Psalm 104:25-28 (NIV)
28 When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. Psalm 104:25-28 (NIV)
1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and
like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to
him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man
of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their
faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we
considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he
was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon
him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We
all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and
the LORD has laid on him the
iniquity of us all. 7 He was
oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb
to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not
open his mouth. 8 By oppression and
judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was
cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was
stricken. 9 He was assigned a grave
with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no
violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet
it was the LORD's will to crush
him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD
makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his
days, and the will of the LORD will
prosper in his hand. 11 After
the suffering of his soul, he will see the light [of life] and be satisfied; by
his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their
iniquities. 12 Therefore I
will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the
strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the
transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the
transgressors. Isaiah 53:1-12 (NIV)
1 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you
who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and
without cost. 2 Why spend money on
what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to
me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. 3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your
soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love
promised to David.” Isaiah 55:1-3 (NIV)
10 Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves
wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless. Ecclesiastes
5:10 (NIV)
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew
5:6 (NIV)
21 “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be
satisfied.” Luke 6:21 (NIV)
BUTTER
“The
believer cannot do without his Lord; words are inadequate to express his
thoughts of Him. We cannot live on the sands of the wilderness—we want the
manna that drops from heaven; the pitchers of self-confidence cannot produce
for us a drop of moisture, but we drink of the rock that follows us, and that
rock is Christ. When you feed on Him, your soul can sing, ‘He who satisfies me
with good so that my youth is renewed like the eagle's’;1 but if you
don’t have Him, your wine cellar and well-stocked pantry can give you no sort
of satisfaction: Learn to lament over them in the words of wisdom, ‘Vanity of
vanities, all is vanity!’” C. H.
Spurgeon revised by Alistair Begg
“Desire only God, and your heart will be satisfied.” Augustine
“Ecstasy and
delight are essential to the believer’s soul and they promote sanctification.
We were not meant to live without spiritual exhilaration, and the Christian who
goes for a long time without the experience of heart-warming will soon find
himself tempted to have his emotions satisfied from earthly things and not, as
he ought, from the Spirit of God. The soul is so constituted that it craves
fulfillment from things outside itself and will embrace earthly joys for
satisfaction when it cannot reach spiritual ones… The believer is in spiritual
danger if he allows himself to go for any length of time without tasting the
love of Christ and savoring the felt comforts of a Savior’s presence. When
Christ ceases to fill the heart with satisfaction, our souls will go in silent
search of other lovers… By the enjoyment of the love of Christ in the heart of
a believer, we mean an experience of the “love of God shed abroad in our hearts
by the Holy Ghost which is given to us” (Rom. 5:5)… because the Lord has made
himself accessible to us in the means of grace, it is our duty and privilege to
seek this experience from Him in these means till we are made the joyful
partakers of it.” John
Flavel
“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in
Him.”
John Piper
“The
love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and
makes alive, it draws and repulses.
There can be nothing more terrible or wonderful than to be stricken with
love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration
of His person, an adoration that disturbs and disconcerts while it purges and
satisfies and relaxes the deep inner heart.” A. W.
Tozer
“Whoever
you are, good reader, and whatever your education may be, if you be the Lord’s,
be assured you will find no rest in philosophizing divinity. You may receive this dogma of one great
thinker, or that dream of another profound reasoned, but what the chaff is to
wheat, that will these be to the pure word of God. All that reason, when best guided, can find
out is but the A B C of truth, and even that lacks certainty, while in Christ
Jesus there is treasured up all the fullness of wisdom and knowledge…..Jesus
satisfies the most elevated intellect when He is believingly received, but
apart from Him the mind of the regenerate
discovers no rest. ‘The fear of the lord
is the beginning of knowledge.’ ‘A good
understanding have all they that do His commandments.’” Charles H. Spurgeon
“Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person,
thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner
well-being you desire? Don't you often hope: ‘May this book, idea, course,
trip, job, country or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.’ But as long as
you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running
helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never
fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going
and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere
in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burn-out. This is
the way to spiritual death.” Henri Nouwen
“He who is a
believer in Jesus finds enough in his Lord to satisfy him now, and to content
him for evermore. The believer is not
the man whose days are weary for want of comfort, and whose nights are long
from absence of heart-cheering thought, for he finds in Christ such a spring of
joy, such a fountain of consolation, that he is content and happy. Put him in a dungeon and he will find good
company; place him in a barren wilderness, he will eat the bread of heaven;
drive him away from friendship, he will meet the ‘friend that sticketh closer
than a brother.’ Blast all his gourds,
and he will find shadow beneath the Rock of Ages; sap the foundation of his
earthly hopes, but his heart will still be fixed, trusting in the Lord. The heart is as insatiable as the grave till
Jesus enters it, and then it is a cup full to overflowing. There is such a fullness in Christ that He
alone is the believer’s all. The true
saint is so completely satisfied with the all-sufficiency of Jesus that he
thirsts no more – except it be for deeper draughts of the living fountain.” Charles H. Spurgeon
HEART SAVOR
·
It is in
the enjoyment of God where the believer finds true happiness.
·
God alone
brings satisfaction to the weary and thirsty soul – everything else is merely a
shadow to the Substance.
·
We are
truly satisfied when we hunger and thirst after Him.
