Cravings

If you have ever had surgery you know that it takes time for you to regain your appetite. You have been blessed with a God given appetite for food. That appetite can be a blessing and help you grow and develop. However, that appetite can be abused and cause your body harm.

Your sinful nature has an appetite for sin. It craves sinful indulgence. Whatever you feed grows and whatever you starve dies. When you feed your sinful nature, it grows. When you starve your sinful nature it dies. As a believer, your appetite for sin is transformed into an appetite for righteousness. Your new nature in Christ craves purity and holiness.

• “All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.” Eph 2:3 (NIV)
  
• “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.” Gal 5:16-17 (NIV)
  
• “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Gal 5:19-21 (NIV)

What will you choose to feed today? Will you choose to feed the cravings of your sinful nature or the cravings of the Spirit? What will you choose to starve today? Will you choose to starve the cravings of your sinful nature or the cravings of the Spirit?

Pursuing God,

Stephen Trammell
Pastor of Leadership and Pastoral Care