Is There Hunger?
While reading about the Azusa revival that began in 1906, I was struck by how hungry the people were for God. There was a great eagerness to seek out the deep things of God. The people knew that there was more and they were willing to put in the time to search it out.
William Seymour turned to God whenever there was a dispute. I believe that the trials that he encountered served to strengthen his pursuit of God. After being invited to Los Angeles he was locked out of the church over a disagreement of theology. With nowhere to go, a family from the church allowed him to stay with them. Seymour responded not with anger or retaliation, but by closing himself in the bedroom to seek God with prayer and fasting. Seymour spent three hours a day in prayer until a fellow minister gave him a word that God wanted him to increase that time to five hours. Even after revival broke out, Seymour continued to spend at least five hours a day in prayer.
Seymour used a key that so many seem to lack today: hunger. He had a hunger to see what God had placed in his heart come to fullness. Specifically, he hungered to see the baptism of Holy Spirit fall as it did in the days of the apostles. Even before experiencing the baptism himself, Seymour preached and prayed for others to receive the baptism of Holy Spirit. Hunger had given him an insatiable desire for something that was yet to come. True hunger from God always produces a prophetic cry for something yet to come. It decrees salvation for the lost. It stands firm in the middle of persecution. In fact, trials produce the key components for glory. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18a states, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.”
When seeking God, neither time nor difficulty is of any effect, only hunger. Pursuit of God with hunger will cause every issue or obstruction in your life to give way for deeper realms of presence. Every issue or sickness must come into alignment with the word of God. As you hunger for God, even the biggest issues begin to fade into a place of lesser concern, replaced with a revelation of God’s heart.
It’s in this place of transformed desires that our plans and concerns align with heaven. What does that alignment look like? Progressively, your concerns are replaced with God’s heart. What He is passionate about increasingly becomes your passion. You may find yourself moved for a city or nation. I have spent days in tearful intercession for the nation of Brazil and more recently, the state of New York. The Lord has given me dreams revealing His heart for these places. He has shown me the revival that will break out and How he will move across the nation and globe as a result of what He does there. As I press into His heart for these places, the mantle of intercession has started to rest on me.
The concerns I had for my job, my health, and ministry shrunk away in light of the burning heart that I now had for revival. Every trial was producing in me a greater glory that has carried me to a place of greater anointing. I found myself praying what Isaiah prayed, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8) Any true glimpse of God’s heart will force a realignment of priorities. As my revelation of God has increased over the past few years, my goals, ambitions, likes, and desires have shifted. As the glory has increased on me, my primary concern has been on hosting the presence and stewarding the heart of God well.
Years ago, I began decreeing the words of Christ in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” I didn’t know exactly what I was asking for, I just knew that hunger was the ticket for more. I can now attest to the fact that there is no greater satisfaction than following the heart of God. When you contribute meaningfully to what God is yearning for, your heart will overflow with the joy of heaven. The more you abandon to see His will accomplished the more your joy will be full. Hunger is the opening to release the satisfaction of heaven. Obedience is the vehicle to see it fulfilled. Hunger produces obedience. Obedience releases greater glory, and His presence releases fullness of joy. (Psalm 16:11)
How will you respond to God showing you His heart for a city? Are you prepared to place His priorities above your own? Are you ready to intercede until the answer comes? God is calling for those who have a hunger for the harvest. I pray that He will send you into the field with a burning desire to see His agenda accomplished in the earth.