It seems like everyone is looking for something to "fill them up." People are looking for more fun, more adventure, more thrills, more happiness, or more of something else that they just cannot seem to get their hands on.

As human beings, we are hungry for something to fill the holes in our lives. We have a craving to eat more, have more, and do more. What do you crave more than anything? What do you really want?

The Bible says:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
(Matt. 5:6)

We are all empty without God's love inside us. It does not matter how cool someone looks on the outside, if he does not know God, then he is empty. It does not matter how much money he has, how popular he is, or how successful he looks.

Without Jesus in the middle of your life, you are empty. People try to fill their lives with all kinds of things but only come up empty every time.

Jesus said we should be hungry for righteousness. This means we should be longing for every part of our life to be right with God. We should want God to smile on every part of what we do every day.

This includes our hearts, habits, attitudes, friends, free time, feelings, music, movies, school, family, and boyfriend or girlfriend.

Many young people who have been in church for a long time say, "I've been in church for years. I've prayed the prayer and everything. Why am I not filled up?"

Jesus promised that you would be filled, not if you went to church, not if you went to youth group, not if you cried at the last night of camp every year, but only if you were HUNGRY for Him and for righteousness.

To hunger is to crave. It means to strongly desire something. It's about longing for and earnestly, intensely desiring something. It is an eagerness, an inclination, a passion. It is like you are famished and thirsty so that you devour greedily.

Are You Hungry?
What are you craving? The world craves things like what to eat, drink, wear, drive, watch, listen to, and go to. The world craves fun, video games, sports, competition, movies, and the American dream.

What teens in America feed themselves is what they are putting in their minds and lives. The average teen:

• Watches 23 hours of TV per week. By the time a child finishes high school he will have spent 18,000 hours with the TV curriculum and only 12,000 with the school curriculum.
  
• Has listened to 10,500 hours of music by the time he is out of twelfth grade.
  
• Has seen 18,000 murders on television by the time they reach high school graduation.
  
• Sees an estimated 14,000 sexual references and innuendoes per year on television.
  
• Has seen 100,000 beer commercials by age 18.

These are just some of the things that are filling the minds and hearts of teens all over America and around the world. Most young people end up feeding themselves a lot of "junk food" for their head and heart.

Junk food gives you the illusion of being full, but you are still empty. These things will destroy, or at the very least distract you from your relationship with God.

The world fills itself up with all this stuff so much that they forget to hunger for God. The problem is that sometimes we, who call ourselves Christians, also fill ourselves with these very same things.

Those of us who say we love God forget to hunger for more of Him! As a result we get so satisfied with mediocrity that we think we are doing pretty good as Christians. We forget to passionately pursue our Savior.

Many teens who go to youth group every week see so many movies, videos, and other music cool things that they start thinking a star is practically a saint if he mentions God in a song, or the idea of heaven or angels in a movie or video.

We know that we have been brainwashed and are mediocre when we start getting our ideas of heaven from Hollywood and from rock music.

We end up thinking that the whole Bible, even though it is the truth, just seems like a fairy tale. The world mocks it so much that you just start believing what they say and start filling your brain with their way of thinking all the time.

It's Time to Blow Some Chunks
If you have been eating all this junk, you need to throw up. You need to get it out of your life. It is time to get rid of the garbage that has been filling our lives and get hungry for God again. We get so full of the junk that there is no room to really hunger for Him.

How do you get the garbage out? You throw it up and get it out by repenting and asking Him to forgive you. It is time to start doing what Jesus said:

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
(Matt. 6:33)

What comes first? The kingdom! God! All else should hold a distant second on our priority lists.

Source: Quit Playing With Fire by Ron Luce.
Excerpt permission granted by New Leaf Press, Inc.