Peter said to Him,
“Explain the parable to us.” 

Jesus said,

“Are you still lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated?

But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.”
Jesus

“When you fast…”

Jesus

“For He has satisfied the thirsty soul,

And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good”

Psalms 107

We were created to hunger.  In this hunger, things are revealed and things are surrendered to.  Hunger is neither good nor bad.  It merely is.  What is chosen to do with that hunger, can build or can destroy.   Hunger reveals a need to fulfill something.  Speaking of food hunger, medical studies are finding out that people's self regulating hunger mechanisms, detect that something in their diet is missing, causes a trigger in many to “hunger” for a particular thing.  Some crave ice cream, others have a craving for eggs, and yet someone craves spinach.  Few however understand what is the underlying need trying to be met.  The body, through its mechanism, is trying to get the raw materials needed to produce the needed extra hormones, so the “craving” is given to get the “ice cream.”  To another, the craving is to supply raw materials to repair an injury and thus the person starts craving “eggs”.  And yet another is healing from a surgery and is craving the iron in the spinach.

The body was created by the Creator to not only maintain but to heal and repair.  However it still needs the right nutrients ingested so it can operate at an optimal state.  God created this built in mechanism of hunger to help acquire the needed building blocks.  However just as anything else the flesh “wants”, when a discipline is not built around it, things can quickly get out of control.

A scoop of ice cream soon becomes two scoops.  Instead of once a month, it becomes everyday.  The craving transforms to a “need.”  The “need” if unchecked turns into an addiction.  This addiction cycle is never satisfied.  The flesh adjusts to the stimulus.  This causes the flesh needing to have more and more of the stimulant to obtain the same euphoria of that first encounter.  This same cycle occurs not only with food.  The addiction mechanisms enslave many into all sorts of chains in their lives.

The “making up” high for a few days, keeps people in a pattern of causing “breakups” in their relationships to get the “high” of “making up.”  The High of earning ever increasing bonuses keeps another in chains, wanting to gain more and more while neglecting other aspects of life.  The exhilaration of a full altar call keeps the preacher preaching while their marriage and life spirals out of control.  The single sexual encounter soon needs multiple.

It is this uncontrolled, uncontained “hunger” that soon becomes a destructive force burning anything and everything that it encounters.  The job, meant to bring the next level of wealth and blessings, soon becomes the thing that destroys that which is the foundation of the marriage.  The unchecked flirty text soon becomes the destructive affair that destroys the peace and stability of the relationship.  The one time 100 person altar call soon becomes the manufactured and manipulated one to make online videos look impressive.

Without an understanding of hunger and its basic and fundamental mechanisms, people soon exchange and violently defend the satisfaction of it in their lives.  The affair is not because someone made the choice not to say “no”  to the text message, but rather it’s defended and justified. Feelings of disrespected or unloved prove the person's needs were unmet and needed to be met.  The stealing of promotion and wages to employees so the executive management can stay by receiving a greater bonus, soon is justified as a healthy necessity for the corporation to survive.  The million dollar lighting and sound upgrade soon becomes a “spiritual need” to “reach the lost.”  But in reality the lighting is upgraded it so the speakers can look and sound good against other “youtube” speakers.

This is why Jesus said, “WHEN you fast.”  He did not say “IF you fast”.  WHEN, is what Jesus declared.  You see fasting causes multiple things to occur, but at its basic fundamental function.  Fasting is simply denying the flesh of what it needs to survive.  It tells the flesh, “NO.”  It causes people to recognize there is a “hunger” that needs to be met.  It highlights that there is a craving that is occurring.  It clarifies the need to surrender to something higher than one's own understanding of how to fulfill that basic “hunger” being experienced.  Fasting reveals just how much the flesh is in control of one’s life versus how much we have allowed the Holy Spirit to mature us in the discipline of submission to His guidance.

God created us with hunger.  It is not hunger that is the sin, but how we submit to that hunger that can be either a blessing or a destructive forest fire.  The thing about an unfettered meeting of hunger is that soon the evidence is seen.  A few grams soon becomes 30 or 50 kilos making one obviously overweight.  A few hours staying at work, soon becomes the whole weekend spent at work.  The one time trill of an overnight stay soon becomes multiple partners and everynight.  The one million view viral prophetic “word” soon becomes multiple “prophetic words” in social media, trying to get the views and clicks for the next “million view” post.

The need for intimate companionship is not evil.  God created us with this hunger.  In the confines of two people willingly submitting to one another for life, in the covenant of marriage, the satisfaction of this hunger can blossom to an expression of strength, trust, and acceptance.  Two can be truly naked with one another and be not afraid.  The hunger to “make more money” is not a sin.  Kept in the firepit of God's grace, it can supply warmth and light to many beyond just one self.  Eating food can supply what the body needs to be optimal in function, strength, and battle readiness.  Releasing a prophetic word to the body, can edify, instruct and bring correction for the maturing of the Body of Christ.

Hunger is a protocol of the kingdom, for a mature child of God understands what it indicates.  The matured child of God operates in the understanding that it is just the beginning of what might be needed.  The mature child understands proper nutrition and also understands that malnourishment also manifests hunger yearnings.  They understand that submission to one another, also means submitting and admitting to one another the honest truth.  In submitting to one another the mature surrender to each other so that they may learn and understand first, why the hunger is there and then how to fulfill the hunger in righteousness.  

The hunger for MORE needs to be understood in perspective to The Kingdom.  Solomon in all his wisdom, never matured in this understanding, and before he died, he had thousands of wives and concubines but never found satisfaction. 

Inside the makeup of, in the core of all children of God, there is a hunger, a yearning, a need to satisfy for “more.”   Many build a picture of how exactly this satisfaction is to look and behave.  Many fall away when this picture is in any way “distorted” or “fails” to live up to their idea of “perfection”.   Things once good and proper, become idols in their lives, and when the Father exposes what that thing has become they either defend their idol, justify it, or surrender it to His purifying fire.  Some even turn the purifying fire into a religion in itself rather than seeing the test.  They make a religion out of their desire to control.  God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, once.  Some now take that experience of surrender as a way to control their lives and constantly control their  “hunger and desires” into their own man made altars.  Rather than addressing the hunger they avoid the hunger and offer it up constantly as “sacrifices” to God by willfully killing (self sabotaging) the thing God is giving them.  It is far easier to kill a deep relationship than to submit to it and be challenged to change, conform to God's image.  It is easier to avoid the sparks of iron sharpening iron.  It’s easier to give up on a startup business rather than adding others and submitting to a mentor a business plan and accountability.  In doing so, many fail to realize it is their way to maintain control but never truly mature and address the need, the hunger.  And their hunger is never satisfied.

To properly address hunger, an honest, transparent and submission to other’s inspection light is needed.  One might be able to diagnose a root cause of hunger but the flesh desires can quickly cause people to become self deceived.   In this self induced deception, people then start to justify their choices in many ways.  Some call it “brand building” but in reality it is just noisy social media posts to keep the “algorithm” in their favor.  Others justify their self-deception saying “well we will one day get married. There is no time in eternity so we are already married.”  Others say, “when I make my next million, I will have time and “margin” to give 100k to the next good cause.”   However, by submitting to one another, confessing our mistakes to one another, the true root of the HUNGER can be addressed.  This submission to the strengths of each other, can then bring revelation, wisdom and maturity to help address righteously the hunger being experienced.

Hunger is a protocol of the Kingdom, for it is only in HIM where the hunger can be truly satisfied.

Jesus spoke on this:

BLESSED are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.  He told the same to the woman at the well.  The water she pulled in her own strength and understanding would not satisfy her.  She had tried various relationships for that deep intimacy and yet she was wanting.   And now Jesus let her know her Hunger was not the problem, it was in fact always pointing her to the reality that to be satisfied she needed not to look at her abilities to meet her hunger temporarily but at the ONE that can truley quench her thirst for ever.

This is why hunger is essential in the Kingdom of God.  The mature know that hunger is a motivation factor to seek out what is the root for the yearning, the cause of the wanting.  The mature know that hunger is a symptom pointing to something that is missing.  The immature seek not righteousness but rather seek the superficial, the quick and the immediate way to satisfy, to satiate their “need.”  But soon the quickie fix, the fast food jolt, the “one time” encounter does not satisfy.  Soon “their control” of the satisfaction, controls them.

Deep hunger causes desperation.  This desperation is by design.  This desperation gives people a choice to seek God for satisfaction or something else.   It is written to seek HIM WHILE He may be found.  You see Hunger is a protocol of the Kingdom because only in The King, can it be satisfied.  The wise recognize this and seek the King.  The foolish wait or think that there will always be time to eventually fully surrender, fully repent, and finally “seek God.”

Amos wrote down, that a great famine will come on the land and the deepest of Hunger will fill the land:

Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God,

“When I will send a famine on the land,

Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water,

But rather for hearing the words of the Lord.

Imagine praying and being unable to hear God.  Imagine knowing that the opportunity to draw close to God existed but for whatever selfish excuse, the season was wasted.  And now the deepest of human hunger, beyond any human intimate relationship, any drug or culinary delight, is now no longer available and this yearning will not be able to be satisfied?  Yearning to hear HIM, but realizing no one is now hearing Him either.

The woman at the well was thirsty, surrendered to His voice and she thirst no more.  Imagine knowing that the opportunity existed but walking away thinking Jesus would be at the well the next day?  Such will be the desperation at the end of time.  Seeking reprieve of the deepest of hunger, but finding none.

Hunger is a protocol of the Kingdom of God, because the mature children of God, know that it is pointing for them to find satisfaction in God not in their abilities.  They recognize that their father is a Good father and would not give them stones for bread.  They know the extravagance of how God satisfies their hunger would never compare to their own ways to find satisfaction.  It is in this hunger that they know within them what Jesus said,

“I am the bread of life;

he who comes to Me will not hunger,

and he who believes in Me

will never thirst.”