Hopefully we are coming out of the Covid era, time will tell. But during the last two years, many Christians have been starving themselves.
A man named Nisraddin Hoca lived in Asia about 700 years ago, and he had a donkey with a big appetite. He wondered if by gradually reducing the animal’s food every day it might be possible to condition the animal to get along without any food at all.
This experiment continued for several weeks, but a few days after all the food had stopped the donkey died. He commented, “What a pity that he should die just when he was getting accustomed to hunger!”
That sounds ridiculous, but it is not much different from what many Christians do. They discontinue regular Bible study. Wednesday prayer meeting and Sunday night worship service become just like any other time of the week, and it is used for recreation. The Bible hour is just too early on Sunday. Sunday is the only day to rest, after all.
Finally, they quit attending altogether. Someone says, “What happened all of a sudden?” It was not a sudden thing with them. They had been cutting down on their spiritual food for some time. They died just when they were getting accustomed to the hunger.
Preachers, craft a sermon on this idea of “starving Christians.” Deut. 8:3 might serve as a beginning scripture to discuss. Perhaps these points will serve as an expansion on what happens when we distance ourselves from God:
1. We starve ourselves of God’s Word
2. We starve ourselves of fellowship
3. We starve ourselves of the benefits of prayer