What will actually satisfy you spiritually?
Today, we’re talking about what will truly satisfy you. Have you noticed that what brings satisfaction changes over time?
When I was a kid, on Sundays after church, my dad would take us to an old fashioned local drug store where there was a soda fountain. We would sit at the counter and get a lime-aid for 10 cents. Every other Sunday, we were allowed to buy a comic book for 12 cents.
There was something very satisfying about this routine. It was a special treat we looked forward to. But as we got older, it no longer had the magic and delight that it did when we were younger.
There were plenty of other things my parents did to make life enjoyable. Sometimes they were more successful than others. Sometimes events made us happy. When I was in 4th grade, my little brother’s dog, a beagle named Trixie had a litter of 6 puppies. My older sister’s dog, Spot, was the father. We were so happy. There’s nothing like having a bunch of little pups running around and being so loving and lovable. There was a wonderful sense of satisfaction and joy just having those little dogs to play with.
But it didn’t last. They quickly grew and we sold them all to good families. The source of that short lived satisfaction was gone.
The older I got, the less some material thing or event would bring any lasting satisfaction. Things would change, or the glow of a new thing, situation, or event would fade away. And life would go on.
What really satisfies?
Looking back over my childhood, young adulthood, and even up to the present, the common denominator I see, which brought any level of real satisfaction had to do with me expressing love or feeling loved, either to and from others or to and from God.
Like the time I found a fledgling mocking bird on the way home from church one Wednesday night. I learned how to feed and care for it. We called him Chirpie because all he did was chirp. I watched Chirpie grow. And I actually helped him find his first live cricket to eat, in the back yard under a flower pot. There was something so satisfying in caring for this little bird who probably would have been eaten by a cat if I hadn’t found him that night and brought him home.
The satisfaction came from the love given. And I actually felt Chirpie, in his own little way, expressed love and appreciation for how I cared for him. But the day came when he flew away. It was a real bittersweet moment.
But he came back later that afternoon and for a couple of days to be fed because he didn’t know how to find all his own food yet. That too was pretty satisfying. But then, I never saw him again. In a way that was satisfying, to know that I had helped this helpless little bird grow up and have a nice bird life. But the joy and satisfaction of caring for him was gone.
It’s about love
Since then, there have been many things and people who have crossed my path with varying degrees of satisfaction coming from my interactions with them. My family obviously, the men and women who are helped in my prison Bible study ministry, and others whom I’ve been able to help in various ways. And those who have helped me. Or sometimes it’s the things I’ve accomplished. But the satisfaction that comes from all these things does have ups and downs at times. In all these activities and relationships, it’s the love given and received that really brings the most lasting satisfaction.
I’ve been thinking about what it is that truly satisfies us, way down deep on a spiritual level. And I’m convinced it has a lot to do with this idea of loving and feeling loved by others.
But I’m realizing it goes way deeper than that. The deepest satisfaction I’ve ever felt is when I feel loved by God, and when I genuinely feel and express my love for God.
Even though I know in theory that God loves me, it doesn’t mean I always feel it, or feel worthy of it. But I am experiencing God’s love in more tangible ways, especially over the last several years, and not just intellectually knowing He loves me.
This verse from Psalms has always been helpful, encouraging, and it’s really a light in the dark when I needed to refocus on what’s important in my life. And it’s helped me get a much deeper sense of what really satisfies.
As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness;
I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness. Psalm 17:15 NKJV
There is so much to ponder and pray about in this one short Bible verse.
Seeing God’s face will satisfy you
What a bold declaration that “I will see Your face in righteousness.” I will see God’s face. You will see God’s face.
What does that even mean? Does God have a literal face you can see? It’s really just a metaphor for seeing and knowing who God really is.
What happens when you look someone in the face, maybe a friend or a sales clerk? When you look in their face, you usually can get a very good idea of who that person is. Are they loving? Are they nervous? Are they afraid? Are they lying? You can see all kinds of things when you look at someone in the face.
To look into God’s face, so to speak, is to discern what He is thinking. It means you can see that He knows and recognizes you, that He loves you and wants the best for you, that He will always tell you the truth. Things like that.
To look into God’s face means you see, or understand, His true character or nature: His holiness and purity, His sense of true justice, His impartial love, even when you may not feel you deserve it for some reason.
This verse I just quoted from Psalms talks about seeing God’s face in righteousness. It sort of implies that there’s at least some righteousness in you or you wouldn’t be able to see God’s righteousness. Think about it. If you were totally evil and living a life in willful disobedience to God’s commandments, you wouldn’t be able to see God’s righteousness, even if it was staring you right in the face.
Waking up to who you are will satisfy you
And the second part of this verse is what I’ve been thinking about lately: “I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.”
This verse makes me think of looking in a mirror and seeing a reflection. But the more I think about it, it’s really God looking in the mirror and seeing His reflection, or as the psalm puts it, His likeness. That means He sees you and me.
How often do you actually think of yourself as the likeness of God? Oh, I know, we love to quote Chapter 1 in Genesis that we’re made in God’s image and likeness. But how often, during a given day, do you actually, consciously, think of yourself as God’s likeness?
I often connect with this idea in the morning during my prayer time, but sometimes during the day, when things get busy or people and events are screaming out for attention, I am not consciously identifying myself as God’s likeness.
But then, there are those times, when a situation or a comment causes me to wake up, you could say, and remember that I am not just a collection of flesh and bones, or whatever problems and challenges I may be carrying around at the time. I remind myself that I am indeed made in the image and likeness of God. And it is very much like waking up.
When I am awake to this fact that I am the likeness of God, when I embrace and accept this fact, and live my life accordingly, it brings a deeper satisfaction than anything else ever has.
And the interesting thing is, it often changes the way I feel physically. I breathe much more deeply. I feel a freedom and peace way down deep inside. I feel loved and I feel, well, satisfied with who I am as a child of God.
Do achieved goals satisfy you?
Not too long ago, I heard a pretty well-known fellow in the business world talk about what brought him a sense of satisfaction. When he was young it was being on the sports team each year and winning an important game. Then it was getting to be a professional football player. Then it was starting his own business. He made goals and achieved them. He worked hard and thought every time that he would finally feel satisfaction when he reached a meaningful goal.
The funny thing was, he did feel some satisfaction for about 30 minutes or maybe even a day, when he achieved his goals, but then that satisfaction evaporated. He finally realized that looking for those kinds of achievements to satisfy him was the wrong approach.
The more he shifted to finding satisfaction in the way he lived his everyday life in treating people with kindness, the more he felt genuine satisfaction with who he was and what he was accomplishing. And that allowed him to accomplish his business and personal goals with less struggle.
The only thing that will really satisfy you
The only thing that will really satisfy you is seeing yourself as the image and likeness of God. I’m not talking about just intellectually knowing this is true, but actually feeling it, experiencing it, accepting and knowing it in your heart, and then acting that way.
The only thing that can really satisfy you comes from God. It’s about His love for you and your relationship with Him.
God is the only one who can actually give you what you need, all you need. And this satisfies.
What does the word “satisfy” actually mean? It’s pretty simple really. It literally means to be filled, to have all you need and more.
That’s why material things, places, situations, even people, can never satisfy on a deep spiritual level the way God can. What we need is to know God, to know our relationship with Him, to know who we are as His children, His image and likeness.
I love these two verses from Psalms,
Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness,
And for His wonderful works to the children of men!
For He satisfies the longing soul,
And fills the hungry soul with goodness. Psalm 107:8, 9 NKJV
That’s what satisfies, when God fills your hungry soul with goodness.
God will satisfy you with His goodness
Let’s look at some examples in the Bible where God filled someone’s hungry soul with goodness.
I’m thinking about Hannah, Samuel’s mother. You can read her story in 1 Samuel, Chapter 1.
She was definitely not feeling any satisfaction in life because she wasn’t able to have children. She thought having a child would make her feel worthy and give some personal satisfaction.
Elkanah, her husband, tried to console her by assuring her of his love and commitment to her and thought that should satisfy her at least to some degree. But it didn’t.
She prayed earnestly for God to give her a son. But her prayer went beyond just a self-centered desire for a son. She promised God if He gave her a son that she would dedicate him to serving God.
And God did give her a son. If you look just on the surface of this story, you could say that Hannah’s satisfaction came from getting a son. But when you go a little deeper, it’s pretty clear that something more is going on.
Real satisfaction
I think the real satisfaction comes from the awareness on Hannah’s part that God heard her. See felt seen and known and valued. She felt worthy in God’s eyes. Her hungry soul was filled with goodness, along with her womb being filled with a child. But it was the goodness that filled her soul which brought the deep down satisfaction she was really longing for.
Wanting a son was a righteous desire on her part and God answered her prayer, but He gave her much more than a child. He gave her a sense of worthiness.
Sometimes, when your friends, family, or business associates tell you how great you are, what a good job you did on a project, and try to make you feel good about yourself, it helps for a little while to make you feel satisfied, but when God fills your hungry soul with goodness, His goodness, that fills you, satisfies you, in a way nothing else can come close to.
There are different ways to experience being filled with God’s goodness.
God fills you up
When Jesus healed that crippled man, who picked up the mat he had been lying on and went home, the people who witnessed this healing were filled with amazement.
Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.” Luke 5:26 NIV
They were filled with the wonder of God’s presence and healing power. They were filled with hope that these things were possible. God filled their hungry souls with His goodness.
Think of the Day of Pentecost. You can read this story in Acts, Chapter 2.
There were about 120 followers of Jesus who were together in a room and they were united in spirit. And that’s when the Holy Spirit descended on them.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues [or languages] as the Spirit enabled them. Acts 2:4 NIV
Talk about being filled with God’s goodness!
The disciples were so aware of God’s fullness and presence, it empowered and emboldened them to go out and tell the world about Jesus and his resurrection, not just that day, but every day for the rest of their lives.
Filled with the fullness of God
That fullness of the Holy Spirit never left them. It was never depleted or diluted.
This is possible today, just as much as it was then. We need to be of one mind, and united in spirit, as the disciples were that particular day.
Paul knew this was possible for all Christians. He wrote the church in Ephesus,
I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14-19 NKJV
Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians is that they be filled with all the fullness of God. In effect, that’s his prayer for you and me and every Christian as well, throughout all time, to be filled with all the fullness of God.
Paul would not have prayed for this if it were not a possibility.
Knowing Christ will satisfy you
Paul wants us to know the love of Christ. When we know and feel Christ’s love, it goes far beyond any satisfaction gained from knowledge, or knowing about Christ. It’s about actually knowing Christ, and when we do we are filled with all the fullness of God.
This is God filling your hungry soul with goodness.
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount,
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6 KJV
If you are hungry and thirsty for material things, for personal power or wealth, prestige, or whatever, you may get them and be momentarily satisfied. But that satisfaction will never last. You will always want more and however much you get, you won’t be satisfied, because no worldly thing can satisfy the spiritual needs and cravings in your heart.
The only thing that will ever completely satisfy you on every level and never fade away, is to know God, to know your relationship with Him as His image and likeness, and to be filled with His love, the fullness of His nature expressed by Christ.
And then go out and live that in your daily life
You are filled with all the fullness of God
True satisfaction comes when you find your identity, your worth, in God, and then live your life accordingly.
My prayer for you is that you know and experience Christ’s love and that you be filled with all the fullness of God.
So lets’ turn this into a prayer you can say, a prayer of affirmation. Every day this week, affirm in your prayers:
I am filled with all the fullness of God.
And if you’re ever feeling unsatisfied or that there’s something missing in your life, just reaffirm: I am filled with all the fullness of God. And see what difference that makes.
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James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.
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Bible References
Psalm 17:15 NKJV
15 As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness;
I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.
Psalm 107:8, 9 NKJV
8 Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness,
And for His wonderful works to the children of men!
9 For He satisfies the longing soul,
And fills the hungry soul with goodness.
Luke 5:26 NIV
26 Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”
Acts 2:4 NIV
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues [or languages] as the Spirit enabled them.
Ephesians 3:14-19 NKJV
14 I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,
17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—
19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Matthew 5:6 KJV
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
