August 13, 2018
I think if I would give my whole message in one sentence, it would be: Jesus really satisfies. Therefore, I want to read to you this scripture from Isaiah 55, because if you aren’t satisfied in your soul and yet you have known the Lord, or you have been taught along the lines of the scriptures, it’s because you’ve let material things come in and crowd Him out. Because He does satisfy.
“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? And your labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently … and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”
“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”1
You notice it says here that if you’re thirsty, if you’re hungry, come, and you can have the very wine of the Spirit, and the food of the gospel without any money, without any price. Then He asks a question: “Why,” He says, “do you spend money for that which is not bread and that which does not satisfy when you could have Christ, the satisfying portion?” How true that is!
There’s a song that I’ve loved through the years called “All Things in Jesus,” which expresses this well:
Friends around us are seeking to find
What the heart yearns for, by sin undermined;
I have the secret, I know where ’tis found:
Only in Jesus true pleasures abound.
Some carry burdens whose weight has for years
Crushed them with sorrow and blinded with tears;
Yet One stands ready to help them just now,
If they with faith and with penitence bow.
No other name thrills the joy chords within,
And through none else is remission of sin;
He knows the pain of the heart sorely tried,
All of its needs will in Him be supplied.
Jesus is all this sad world needs today;
Blindly men strive, for sin darkens the way.
Oh to draw back the grim curtains of night—
One glimpse of Jesus, and all will be right!
All that I want is in Jesus;
He satisfies, joy He supplies;
Life would be worthless without Him,
All things in Jesus I find.
—Harry Dixon Loes2
When Jesus is in your life, you find how truly He satisfies! And then you long to tell others also about Him. If you’ll trust His Word, believe His promises, He’ll meet them, and He’ll satisfy your every desire.
I’m thankful to the Lord for another year that has passed, very precious because He revealed Himself anew to my heart. I can say yet again as a testimony, when it comes to Jesus satisfying, that:
He was better to me than all my hopes,
He was greater than all my fears,
He made a bridge of my broken works,
And a rainbow of my tears.
—Author unknown3
As the years have passed, the wonders of God’s love and the beauty and grace of Jesus Christ have unfolded in greater magnitude and reality, until I can truly say that Jesus satisfies. He truly satisfies. I’ve been in the service of the Lord for over 50 years. In all that time we’ve been serving Him, He’s never disappointed once, and He’s answered so many prayers.
That’s a wonderful passage in the 55th chapter of Isaiah. It tells of the promise of Christ and calling to faith and repentance, and the blessings that will come to those that accept the invitation to come, buy wine, milk, bread without money, without price.
The greatest of all supernatural things is that Christ, the incarnate Savior, should plead with us in all of our emptiness to come and partake of His richness and glory. He says, “If you’re thirsty of soul, come. If you’re hungry of heart, come.” If you don’t have any money, it makes no difference to Him; come without money, come without price, but come, come to Him.
In this passage, He’s saying, “If nothing’s satisfied you, if you still have that emptiness and that aching void, come; I’ll satisfy your heart. You spent your money for that which isn’t bread, and your labor for that which isn’t satisfying; now come and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Would that our souls would be fat from feasting on God’s Word and believing His promises.
God’s Word declares that Jesus Christ is a satisfying portion. Millions have testified over the centuries that He has satisfied every desire of their heart. Before finding Christ, they knew nothing but the world’s work and the world’s wages, and spending money for that which didn’t satisfy. Then Jesus came into their life and there dawned upon their darkened souls a light that never was on land or sea. God’s Word calls it “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”4
He knows what you are, He knows our frame, and yet just think, He humbles Himself and stoops down to your level and pleads with you to come. “Incline your ear,” He says. “Come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live.”5
To know the only true God in Jesus Christ is indeed satisfying. Jesus said, “He that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out.”6 His Word says, “Return unto the Lord and he will have mercy, and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon.”7 Even so, we ask You, Lord, for this abundant pardon and mercy.
He’ll meet you, and as you live in His Word and you talk to Him, you’ll grow in faith and your soul shall be satisfied. God bless you and keep you and make you a blessing to others.
From a transcript of a Meditation Moments broadcast, adapted. Published on Anchor August 2018. Read by Debra Lee.
1 Isaiah 55:1–2, 6–7 KJV.
2 Adapted from “All Things in Jesus” by Harry Dixon Loes, 1915.
3 Author unknown. Quoted in Streams in the Desert by L. B. Cowman.
4 2 Corinthians 4:6.
5 Isaiah 55:3.
6 John 6:37.
7 Isaiah 55:7.
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