MORE

Society is fraught with the ever increasing need for more. More is never enough. So more becomes even more. Ideas flood our society- More is better than less. More will make you satisfied. We have an innate longing for more. Whether we realize it or not, we were made to crave more. Acquiring things is one way we attempt to satisfy this craving. We go after the next great thing. We want the best technology, the coolest car, the most fashionable clothes, the most expensive designers. Believe me, i'm guilty of this too! We are captivated by society's attempt to satisfy this craving. We continually go after more only to feel empty and unfulfilled we finally obtain it.

Ecclesiastes tells us of a man who sought more of everything. It was in the water back then too! This man, King Solomon, became the richest man in the world, the wisest who ever lived, and experienced worldly pleasures none could fathom. But at the end of the day, he was still left empty.

So what does Solomon's account tell us about our drive for more? Our innate desire for more is often displaced. We think the world will satisfy our longing for more-but instead it leaves us feeling all the more empty. It isn't enough- it will never be enough.

We were simply made for more. The Bible gives us a word picture of more than enough. We were made to crave more of God. We want more (whether we know it or not) of him. He is the only one that has the power to satisfy our every longing. In my Bible, I kept running across the words abundance, riches, heaping, and more. Here's the kicker- God wants to give us MORE THAN MORE. Let me say that again, God wants to give us an overabundant heaping measure of his goodness, grace, and presence. He wants us to have more- his way, not ours. That's the destination.

First, let's look at John 3:27 in TPT, "John answered them a person cannot receive one thing unless God bestows it... And because of his words my joy is complete and overflows! So it is necessary for him to increase and for me to be diminished."

In him, we are made complete- lacking nothing. Colossians 2:9-10, "For he's the complete fullness of deity living in human form. And our completeness is now found in him. We are completely filled with God as Christ's fullness overflows within us." However, we must first decrease in our earthly desires, put them on the altar of sacrifice- and let him fill us.

The reason we are never satisfied with worldly things is because what we are craving is not of this world! We desire something greater. We desire something that cannot be found here- in our human capacity.

Jesus himself makes this assertion, John 17:13-16 (TPT) in his prayer to the Father, "But now I am returning to you so Father, I prayer that they will experience and enter into my joyous delight in you so that it is fulfilled in them and overflows. I have given them your message and that is why the unbelieving world hates them. For their allegiance is no longer to this world because I am not of this world. I am not asking that you remove them from the world but I ask that you guard their hearts from evil, "For they no longer belong to this world any more than I do."

So you see, the world cannot satisfy the longing we have, because we are not of it. We are foreigners in this land. Let's take for example, the perspective of an immigrant who migrated to another land, no matter how amazing the food of their new country is- they will always long for a taste of home. Nothing will ever satisfy.

Jesus presents this sentiment in John 10:10, "A thief has only one thing in mind- he wants to steal, slaughter and destroy. But I have come to give you everything in abundance, more than you expect- life in its fullness until you overflow."

We were simply made for more. However, the more we are made for can only be quenched through union and fellowship with our creator. Since we are not of this world, the things of this world will never be enough to satisfy the emptiness only God can fill.

As the song, "Set a Fire" says, "Set a fire down in my soul that I can't contain and I can't control, I want more of you, God."

The fire inside us is the desire for MORE- and can only be filled with God. In search for more, we can attempt to fill it with everything under the sun- but nothing on this earth will ever give us what we need. For we are not of this world.