God, You are my God, I eagerly seek You. I thirst for You; my body faints for You in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water. So I gaze on You in the sanctuary to see Your strength and Your glory. My lips will glorify You because Your faithful love is better than life. So I will praise You as long as I live; at Your name, I will lift up my hands. Psalm 63:1-4 HCSB

I want you to think for a minute about the things in your life. Are there those things that you think you just cannot live without? I want you to be brutally honest here. It’s just you, you don’t have to share this with anyone. I just want you to take a minute to really think about this. Think about the things you use in the scope of an average day and try to determine if you could or could not live without them. Now I want you to broaden it to include those things that you would not want to live without. Have you ever done even a 24 hour fast and given these things up to spend more time with the Lord, just asking?

In all honesty, we cannot live without things like air, water and food. But we have come to believe that we cannot live without things like computers, smartphones, cars, air conditioners. I certainly would not want to live in the heat and humidity of southeast Louisiana without air conditioning. We have come to depend on things like computers and smartphones. We enjoy our televisions and tablets. And oh, the horror of losing the remote control!

If we are brutally honest with ourselves, then we know that there is one thing that we definitely cannot live without and that is Jesus. We need Jesus in our lives in order to have eternal life. We must accept Him as our savior. We must follow His commands and be imitators of Him in our daily lives. Without Him we are destined for an eternity in hell. And my friend, that is no way to live. As a matter of fact, it leads to death.

Now think about those things that you would not want to live without like the computer, smartphones, and tv. Do these things aid you in getting closer to Jesus or do they get in the way of time spent with your Lord and Savior? Do they draw you closer to Jesus or do they distract you from spending time with Him? Has that shiny new boat become your sanctuary on Sundays? Are you spending more time on the water than in church? Is your new hunting camp or river house drawing you away from Him? Are you having to work overtime on weekends, including Sundays, to pay for all your distractions?

As a child, when I wanted something my mom would always respond with, “Your wants will never hurt you.” In other words not getting what I wanted would be okay as long as I had all that I need. If you focus on Christ, He promises us in Matthew 6:33 that He will provide all that we need. It’s very important that we have the wisdom to discern the difference between our wants and our needs. We need Jesus. We often allow what we want to get in the way of a good, solid relationship with Him.

In our Bible study last night, our instructor said that she has experienced something that I am currently experiencing. I used to drink coffee and decaf sweet tea. I rarely drank water. I recently gave up sweet tea and have begun drinking water on a daily basis. I will admit to having about one Dr. Pepper a week but that’s a whole other blog there. I used to hate drinking water, but since I have replaced my sweet tea, I crave water. I drink it all day.

I also learned that by replacing those distractions in my life with Jesus, I now crave Him. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us not to lean on our own understanding but in all our ways acknowledge Him and He will direct our paths. I have learned that when I focus on Him and make Him a part of everything I do, I can’t get enough of Him. I can’t live without Him and I don’t want to.

I spent enough of my time living without Jesus in my heart. I never want to go back to living that way. I now know I can’t live without Him. I wouldn’t want to live without indoor plumbing, air conditioning, tv and some of those conveniences that I have come to rely on, but I know that life without Jesus would be unbearable.

If you haven’t experienced that deep craving for Him in your heart, then taste and see that He is good (Psalm 34:8). Once you get a taste, you won’t be able to live without Him.

Have a great day!