Week 1: A Hunger for God

This week we begin our next book. If you have not yet purchased your copy, go ahead and grab the FREE PDF here while you wait for it to arrive.

Recommended Reading:
Foreword, Preface, and Introduction (15 pages)

Key Quotes:
Foreword/Preface:
"This is not a book of legalism. It’s not a book of technique. It does not contain a twelve-step plan…it’s a book more about our hearts than our stomachs." (pg. 11)

"’Desires for other things’ – there’s the enemy. And the only weapon that will triumph is a deeper hunger for God.” (13)

“What is at stake here is not just the good of our souls, but also the glory of God.” (14)

Introduction
“The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies, but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth.” (18)

“If you don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world.” (26)

Engagement Questions:
Foreword:

1. What four reasons are given for why we fast?

2. Do the above four reasons resonate with you and do you find that you also have those same yearnings?

Introduction
1. When was the last time you yearned for something or someone? Does that hollowness and deep desire for wholeness resonate to you with the discipline of fasting?

2. John Piper states that, “the strongest, most mature Christians..are the hungriest for God” (25). Do you agree with this statement?

Chapter Summary:
Foreword and Preface:
Let’s be honest, how many of us really read the forewords and prefaces in every book? Well I encourage you to get into the habit of reading these sections because they provide you with a very high-level overview on the scope of the book. After having read those two sections, you will have a good idea about the purpose and limitations of the book and they can be insightful, especially if you are considering whether or not you should purchase that book. As it relates to A Hunger for God, we are challenged to examine our own hearts as we ask of ourselves, ‘do I hunger and crave to know Him more than I crave anything else in this world?’ This book was originally written in 1997, and yet we find that the principles taught are very timely and timeless for the church. We are warned at the outset to be wary of “books on fasting” as they can promote a sort of “Christian” asceticism. What this book seeks to accomplish is to show us how the “weakness of our hunger for God is not because he is unsavory” but rather because we have filled our lives and hearts with lesser things (14). It is a book that forces us to become more acutely aware of how much we have been affected by the idols in our lives and invites us to turn to the one who is supreme; to the one who is worthy. It calls us to have a growing hunger for God.

Introduction:
The Introduction begins with a definition on the concept of fasting. He describes it as being two-fold: 1) our desire for God is heightened as we deny ourselves food, and 2) our desire for food is powerful. What Dr. Piper is describing is a very real, yet unseen, war within every Christian’s life: our desire to know God more as we deny ourselves from satisfying our appetite -and- a conscious resistance to very real appetites that are lesser. This is all meant to produce in a believer an appetite that is real; a growing appetite for God as we go through times of self-denial from things which compete with our hunger for God. This book is divided into two sections: 1) examining the inward war we all face and 2) the outward war of revival and reformation. Ultimately it is calling us to bear hearts which cry out, “This much, O God, I want you.” (26)

Grace and Peace,
Alex Galvez

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