Never hungry or thirsty.

Can you imagine how this sounded to those Jewish men? How much of our life revolves around making certain we have enough food to eat and something to drink.

How could they know the Lord was speaking of true hunger and true thirst, the hunger and thirst of the human personality?

Every healthy human being has a need for the fulfillment that only Jesus Christ brings. We have a need for survival and security. We have a need for pleasure. We have a need to make our mark in some manner, to achieve something worthwhile so our life has meaning.

We often look to the world, particularly to the amassing of money, for survival and security.

Children want to have fun. Adults seek pleasure through the stimulation of their physical senses. Adults often strive to prove they are someone of importance.

Survival; pleasure; achievement. These probably are the major sources of our motivation, and they are normal. It is normal to want to be secure. It is normal to want to have pleasure. It is normal to want to achieve something of significance during one's lifetime. These are the hungers and thirsts to which the Lord was referring.

The Lord is telling us that whoever comes to Him and believes in Him will survive and be secure.

Whoever comes to Him and believes in Him will find pleasure.

Whoever comes to Him and believes in Him will find the purpose in life he is seeking.

After having served the Lord for well over fifty years, I can see how true it is that only in Jesus are these three hungers and thirsts fully satisfied.

We may believe there is survival and security in the world, especially in money. But one moment we are safe and the next moment we are dangling over a precipice. We are sued and lose all the money we had saved. We had to have several expensive operations. Our son is in an automobile accident and now is a quadriplegic. Our daughter has run away and is living with a woman we don't know. The list goes on and on.

We can spare ourselves much sorrow by forfeiting our integrity. We often can flee from unpleasant situations, not caring what happens to our loved ones. But once we are not true to ourselves we lose our soul and become nothing but an appetite, an empty shell of a person.

The Lord Jesus Christ gives us perfect security. He is with us in every trouble and delivers us. Best of all, He frees us from the fear of death. No other power can protect us like Jesus can. So we never hunger and thirst for security again.

The Lord Jesus Christ gives us love, joy, and peace. Indulgence in bodily appetites yields a momentary frantic pleasure, and then years of remorse, and sometimes sickness. It is true that following Christ requires that we discipline ourselves. Then we find through discipline we are set free, whereas to live without discipline brings chains—like the person dying with venereal disease.

Any disciple of the Lord will tell you that following Christ brings love, joy, and peace that the world knows little about. Also, the Lord promised us eternal joy in the future.

The Lord Jesus satisfies our hunger and thirst for pleasure, and He is the only One who can.

As far as achievement is concerned, it is a fact that whoever does the will of God lives forever. Everyone who serves God gives an eternal witness. Noah, Abraham, Daniel, and the Apostle Paul are testifying to us to the present hour. The woman who poured the perfume on the feet of Christ gained immortality by that one act. Wherever the Gospel of the Kingdom has been preached, her story has been told. How is that for achievement?

Whoever touches the Lord Jesus becomes immortal. He totally satisfies our hunger and thirst for living a meaningful life.

To be continued.