Satisfy Your Soul

Sinners are dying daily and going to hell. You have to be touched supernaturally by God’s Spirit. Your salvation experience is powerful and life changing and you want to share it with others. Even newly converted believers can and must share his or her experience with Jesus Christ, but at the same time, your Christianity needs to go far beyond sharing the gospel, you have to working on your own spirituality. When we are saved and have a relationship with Christ, we are not lacking in our beliefs, nor are we questioning our theology or doctrine. When we are saved we instantly begin to have a longing for something more with God. We want to begin to know God on a deeper level each and every day. As a Christian, people have to know and understand when God is leading us and directing them. Part of that is maturing in Christ and realizing our growth is a daily practice and needs to be throughout our lives. The book Satisfy Your Soul, written by Dr. Bruce Demarest brings attention to the fact that we need put our conversion and our spiritual growth together as we walk down the path of a deeper knowledge of God. Demarest states that even as far back as the day of Pentecost, Christians understood that conversion was just the beginning of your journey with God (Demarest, 1999, p. 23).

As Demarest moves through his book he brings his readers on a journey of learning what it means to have a hunger for God and how important the need for discernment is in our lives. As A.W. Tozer once said, “You can be straight as a gun barrel theologically and as empty as one spiritually” (p.63). In other words, you can know your beliefs frontwards and backwards without ever wavering, but you can be empty inside because you have never experienced the power and pleasure that is in the Christian Spirituality. Having that empty feeling or that void in life can sometimes be hard to fill. As you read through Demarest’s book, the reader gets this feeling of requirement to talk to other individuals about their spiritual journey. Whether it was the intention of Demarest or not, a strength to this book is that it push’s the reader to talk to other people and to God about what is happening in their walk with spirituality. Communication is a key part in any person’s spiritual life. Every person will need people in their lives that can walk with them through their good times and bad times, through their mistakes and their victories. By having these people to talk to, as Demarest states, you can begin to sense each other’s spiritual aspirations and hungers (Demarest, p.61). It is not just people that Demarest suggest you talk to. He is clear and correct to point out that God needs to have an intricate role in your life, specifically in your prayer life through intimate communication. Demarest points out that we are often times caught up in doing things for God, fulfilling our responsibilities of things like attending church and tithing. But where we have fallen is where the Bible tells us that we need to walk with Christ and conform to His image (Demarest, p.93).

Along with communication comes a second strength to Demarest’s book; knowing the obstacles that hinder a Christians walk with God. These two things walk hand in hand. When one has communication and intimate time with God, they will be able to hear Him speaking to them about where their weaknesses are and what things they have failed in. One hindrance Demarest is sure to point out is that unconfessed sin can erode a connection with Christ (Demarest, p.108). These sins can take control of a person’s life if left unchecked and unconfessed. Humans are not to walk a sinless life because that is impossible, God made humans with free will and with that free will come choices that turn into mistakes. But, part of bringing a person’s spirituality to light is being honest with themselves and with God about their sins. Hebrews 11:6 tells us “If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin” (The Message).

Demarest does a masterful job in teaching that a connection with Christ is more than just works, but a daily intimate walk with God that requires communication and confession. Part of Demarest’s writings about communication involves meditation in order to know and love God. If there is any weakness to Demarest book, it would be his ideas in mediation. Purely from a theological and doctrinal difference, I simply cannot completely agree with the explanations given by Demarest about meditation. While Demarest does make valid points about quieting ourselves in the presence of God to hear Him speak to us; some of Demarest suggested techniques are not biblical and Demarest attempts to support these ideas through past practitioners (Demarest, pp. 163-167). Involvement in what could be described as mystical practices such as meditation, if one is not careful, can become a counterfeit of the work of the Holy Spirit. Being involved in mystical practices grows out of a motivation or a desire to go beyond the word God to find sources of insight, understanding, or knowledge that is contrary to what the Bible reveals as truth. I am well aware that meditation and mystical practices can come in all sorts of different packages, some biblical and some not. We have to be careful of what we are reading and practicing and put that against scripture to see if these practices follow the truths of the Bible, and that we also do not take verses out of context to support ideas that a person wants supported.

Christian’s need to be careful that they are not drawn into anything that becomes human centered. God’s word is more than adequate to provide inspiration and direction in a Christian’s life. Philippians 4:19 gives us the promise that believers can be sure that God will take care of everything you need, his generosity exceeding even yours in the glory that pours from Jesus (MSG). That promise can be trusted with better certainty than any mystical or man-made power. Outside of that one personal weakness, I do believe there are things that I can put into practice in the ministry that I am currently apart of. It is clear that Demarest wants his readers to have a true experience with God that goes beyond our everyday works. For myself, my preaching is rooted in my experiences with God. As preachers, we need to know God ourselves if our hearers are ever to know God. Knowing that God has forgiven my sins can enable me to enthusiastically preach salvation and forgiveness.

Thomas Brooks once said “There is nothing that makes a man so able to preach Christ to the people, as getting Christ inside of him.” Though I do not necessarily agree with all Demarest’s suggestions of how to do this, I do however agree with and believe he is clear we need an intimate relationship with Christ. Part of my job as a pastor is teaching, preaching, and discipleship. I cannot do any of those successful until I have Christ inside of me. The writings of Demarest come into practice in my current ministry because of this. I am a youth pastor and I love telling about how God forgives our sins, I think every pastor does! Going back to what Demarest writes on unconfessed sin is my favorite part of his book. Personally, one thing I have realized after reading this book and spending time with God is that we all have unconfessed sin that is dragging us through the mud so to speak. This is one discipline that I am excited to learn and teach more in depth in the future. Every teenager goes through issues and trials in life and some are left untreated and as Demarest claims, “unresolved sin is the immediate cause of much emotional disturbance and illness” (Demarest, p. 108). We can take those words and really put them into practice by confessing our sins to God while in His presence. We cannot keep letting the unconfessed sin pull us down and prevent us from ever having a complete intimate relationship with Christ.

We tend to think it is the big sins that we need to confess and deal with, but Demarest is successful in telling his readers that it is all sin that will corrode our relationship with Christ if left unconfessed, that includes the small sins that we sometimes overlook. King Solomon warned that it is “the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom” (Song of Solomon 2:15, New International Version). The biggest discipline that I will take into my ministry is that the big sins are easy to deal with and guard against, but the little secret sins can creep in sometimes hardly unnoticed and these are what we need to confess before God. We confess to hear what is in our own hearts; to learn and grow from it, and have a deeper spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ.