Focus: Appetite

Text: Rom.14:17

"For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."

In this text the Apostle Paul tells us what the kingdom is not, and what it is.

The kingdom of God is not about FOOD - eating and drinking. The kingdom of God is about RIGHTEOUSNESS, PEACE, and JOY in the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ says man shall live by every word God speaks, not just by mere physical food. Paul exhorts us, "Do not be drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit" (Eph.5:18). The kingdom is not about booze, but about the Spirit and His control of our lives. Paul says, "I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry" (Phil.4:12). Paul's life was not preoccupied with food. He was a kingdom-minded person.

God said to Adam, "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat" (Gen.2:17). That is like saying, 'When it comes to this tree, lock up your appetite. It will give you death, not life. Don't make it part of your daily meal. Let it not be in your menu list.'

But it turned out that "when the woman SAW that the tree was GOOD FOR FOOD, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she TOOK of the fruit thereof, and did EAT, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did EAT" (Gen.3:6). She saw the forbidden fruit as "good for food." Satan makes forbidden things look attractive to us. We are lured by their charm to the point where we ignore the fact that they are forbidden.

So Adam and Eve ate the forbidden food, carried away by the glow of it. Adam couldn't even say, NO, to his wife. They just couldn't resist the temptation or the urge. They ignored God's order and bowed to the dictate of their own appetite.

If God is against a thing, simply lock your appetite to it. It is bondage when you let your appetite control you.

Solomon speaks of a man given to appetite, and the psalmist prays not to eat of the dainties of men of iniquity (Prov.23:2; Ps.141:4). Paul describes certain characters "whose end is destruction, whose God is their BELLY, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things" (Phil.3:19). They let their appetite assume the position and role of deity over their lives.

About Esau, the Scripture says, "Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright" (Heb.12:16). Esau is a man of the appetite. He sells his birthright for food. The birthright was not stolen from him; he sold it. It meant nothing to him. Is it not something of an irony that he later sought with tears for the blessing of a birthright he had despised? The birthright and the blessing belonged together. You cannot have one without the other. Privilege and responsibility are meant to function together, not apart from each other.

I plead with you to check and control your appetite. Don't let it tell you what to do.

Appetite seeks to enslave, and we should watch it. The ideology of the appetite is: 'If it feels good, go for it. Go for what you want, how you want it, when you want it, and where you want it.' Say NO to such a subjective ideology and tendency. Go, rather, for God's glory, and use your whole life to glorify God, not to serve or gratify your carnal appetite.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter