Heavens Milk.
Romans 8.22-23
Do you ever get a craving for something? I don’t mean something like, ‘oh, I’d like to have a cool glass of water right now,’ or ‘gee wouldn’t it be nice to eat a good steak tonight,’ or even ‘man I wish I was somewhere else right now.’
No, what I am asking is, “Do you crave anything?”
This craving is a deep desire, a pressing need, a longing, a yearning, or like I refer to sometimes as a real hankering for something.
Testimonies: I use to tie my horse up in the woods and seek God.
My bathroom floor in our second house became my war-room.
Ive had an office at every house Ive lived in my office has been a place of study, prayer, weeping, seeking, reading, meditation, and messages.
Some people have cravings for certain foods, like chocolate or other sweets, perhaps a favorite meal; I mean they really want these things.
Anyone here have a favorite food? Perhaps these foods give you a bit of a rush or a feeling of comfort that can’t be satisfied by anything else?
There are hundreds/thousands of ‘things’ we can crave. Some cravings give that great ‘rush’.
Maybe it’s a physical activity, like an extreme sport or other dangerous activity. I believe one reason people race cars or jump out of airplanes, get on the back of a bucking bull…They have a craving for danger.
I have a very important question for you. Q&A. Do you crave the Word of God? -Do you have a deep desire to get into it, and when you do, -do you have trouble putting it down? -Do you get a kind of euphoric feeling when you read something that perhaps you have not read before?
Ponder on this. “When you came into the world, you entered it with a longing. You longed for milk. You had no idea what milk was, but you desired it.”
You haven’t ever tasted it; you had never seen it. -And yet the longing for it was there deep inside you’re being before you had any assurance that it existed.
Here’s our text, Romans 8:22-23NLT “For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as His adopted children, including the new bodies He has promised us.”
Vs. 22…All creation groans…
I want to reread this evenings text from the MSG Bible.
Romans 8:22-25MSG All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
It turns out that what you longed for, what you knew only from the hunger deep inside you… Was real.
-There was a mother and a mother‘s breast to answer our longings.
Ecclesiastes 3:11NLT “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.”
Just as God planted eternity in the human heart….Just as God gave a craving/longing in the human heart for milk.
-God gives you a longing/craving for heaven.
Romans 8:22TPT “To this day we are aware of the universal agony and groaning of creation, as if it were in the contractions of labor for childbirth.”
Again, Just as there is a longing for milk from a newborn, there is a longing/craving for heavens milk!
Do you know where the word ‘mother’ came from? The word was created by babies, all across the world, and almost every language on earth, you can hear in the word for mother, the cry of a baby: Mamba, Mom, amma, ema, mai, mata, ma.
It comes from those first longings, the longing for milk. (Mothers milk)!
And all these words bear witness that to our longings, their existed and answer.
However, remember this is about babies.
Moreover our longing for milk passes away, but we find another longing within our hearts… Another emptiness… Another hunger… But deeper… A longing for that which the world never answers.
Again, Eccl. 3.11 God has planted eternity within the human heart! PH
We long for the perfect, for a perfect love, a perfect happiness, a perfect-contentment, and a perfect piece.
We long for, Heaven!
Philippians 4:6-9TPT “Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life, 7 then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will guard your heart and mind through Jesus Christ. 8 Keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising him always.”
We long for that which doesn’t fail, that which never disappoints us, or grows old, or passes away. For we long for the eternal and the perfect.
Matthew 24.35NIV Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
Please hear me, “This world can never answer those longings…And still these longings stay with us all the days of our lives.” PH
We long for it, though we’ve never tasted it. And our very longings bear witness that what we had never seen or tasted was real!
Psalm 34:8aNKJV O taste and see that the Lord is good…
Psalms 34:8MSG Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see— how good God is. Blessed are you who run to him.
So as we longed for milk… And milk existed… --So we long for the perfect because the perfect exist!
Romans 8:23NKJV “Not only that, but we also who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.”
One translation states, We have the Spirit as the first fruit. (Galatians 5:22-23).
Yes, and we long for a perfect love because there is a perfect love. We long for the eternal, because the eternal exist and the eternal put that longing into our hearts so we would seek him… And find him.
I Peter 2:1-3NKJV “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, 2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”
So in the same way that our longing for milk once bore witness that although we had never yet seen it, milk existed.
* The longing that is now in our hearts is for the perfect, for the eternal, for heaven bears witness that, although we have not yet seen it, heaven exist. Heaven is real! P.H
Yes, our deepest longings are the witness of the milk of heaven.
What are the deepest needs and longing of your heart?
Join them to Jesus. Bring them to Him, and receive from Him their filling.
4 things Jesus knows: (Now we know God knows everything, so here is my four).
1. You were born with a longing for milk. Not just milk, but spiritual milk.
2 Timothy 3:16-17ESV All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2. You were born for another world; You were born for the eternal!
Again, God planted eternity in the heart of man.
Here’s an amazing and truthful statement: “And if you know you were born for another world, you can face anything in this temporal.” PH
3. We (believers), long for the redemption of our bodies. We long for a city whose foundations and maker is God, where there is no more weeping, no more pain, or sorrows! P.H
Hebrews 11:10ESV For he (Abraham) was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
That old song looking for a city:
Here among the shadows in a lonely land
We're a band of pilgrims on the move;
Burdened down with sorrows, shunned on every hand Looking for a city built above. Looking for a city, where we'll never die There the sainted millions, never say good-bye There we'll meet our Savior, and our loved ones too Come O Holy Spirit, all our hopes renew
4. Babies are born crying, longing for mamas milk. (Therein your crying, longing and cravings, you can find milk!
God’s word teaches that Men, Women, boys and girls have this craving for God’s word.
A mother and her little four-year-old daughter were preparing to retire for the night. The child was afraid of the night. The child was afraid of the dark, and the mother, alone with the child, felt fearful also. When the light was out, the child caught a glimpse of the moon outside the window, "Mother," she asked, "is the moon God’s light?” "Yes," said the mother, "God’s lights are always shining.” The next question was, "Will God blow out His light and go to sleep?” "No, my child, God never goes to sleep.” Then, out of the simplicity of a child’s faith, the little one said that which gave reassurance to the fearful mother, "Well, as long as God is awake, I am not afraid.”
Benediction. My prayer for you this evening is for, “Heavens Milk to make you crave for eternity!”
