I want to ask the parents, how many times have you fixed a good meal for your kids and when they came to the table, they said "I'm not hungry." And then you discover that just before the meal they ate potato chips or ice cream. No wonder they're not hungry for your well-balanced, nutritious meal. They spoiled their appetite with junk food.
Well, let me ask you: Have you been spoiling your appetite for God with the world's junk food? As God's children we often do that, and of course, we are the ones who suffer for it because we are not nourished by the wonderful table our Lord has prepared for us through His Word, p ray er, fellowship, etc.
What's spoiling your appetite? Could it be that television spoils your appetite for God? A friend in my Sunday school class shared with us how she had been spoiling her appetite by watching a soap opera everyday. She taped it while at work, and first thing every evening, watched that soap opera. She knew is was not edifying or uplifting, but she had allowed herself to become addicted to this particular program.
She began to p ray Romans 12:1 and 2 into her life on a daily basis, and shortly thereafter the Spirit of God convicted her about this worldly junk food which she was pouring into her mind. It was spoiling her appetite for God. However, as she began seriously p ray ing that God would accept her body as a living sacrifice and help her not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by a renewed mind, she had the power to break that obsession and she was freed from that junk food. Now, her appetite for God is stronger because she's not filling up her mind and her spirit with that junk.
Another listener wrote that God was helping her to break her dependency on television by turning on Christian radio as she got home each evening and listening to a wonderful program of classical Christian music instead of watching television. She now reads and gets other things done while listening to that good music, and it has increased her appetite for the things of God. Why? Because she's not filling up on junk food.
Someone said recently they watched Friends and programs like that so they would be aware of what's going on in the world. I think that is unbiblical thinking. You don't have to rob someone to know that robbery is wrong. And when you allow the junk on television to invade your mind regularly, you're spoiling your appetite for God.
Well, I know I've "quit preaching and gone to meddling," as they say, but I really believe there are many of us who need to check up on ourselves in this area. If you and I are ever going to know God in meaningful ways, we must hunger and thirst for Him and stop spoiling our appetites on the junk that is all around us.
Program Transcript, The Christian Working Woman, Mary Welchel.
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