Hunger Is Currency in the Kingdom

Spiritual hunger is an essential edge in your Christian walk. When you are spiritually hungry, you persevere through trials. You stay faithful in mundane seasons. You seek God in dry times. And when He begins to move, you press in instead of pulling back.

Without hunger, something else will take its place. You will pursue other things above God. You will atrophy in your walk. Vision will blur. Discipline will loosen. Drift becomes easy when desire fades.

I’ve found that spiritual hunger trumps giftedness every time. If you are spiritually hungry, that internal longing for God and His ways will take you further than talent ever could. Giftedness without hunger plateaus. Hunger always keeps growing.

That’s the beauty of spiritual hunger — it has nothing to do with your abilities. It’s not about performance or platform. It’s not about achieving something for God. It’s about wanting Him. And anyone can long for God. You can be the hungriest person in every room if you choose.

I like to say it this way: hunger is currency in the Kingdom of God. God moves toward desire. He fills the hungry (Luke 1:53).

Biblical Pictures of Spiritual Hunger

When you look at Scripture, spiritual hunger is not a theory — it is embodied in people.

Moses stands before God and says, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here” (Exodus 33:15). God had already promised the land. Victory was assured. But Moses was not satisfied with blessing without presence. Then he prays one of the boldest prayers in the Bible: “Please show me Your glory” (v. 18).

That is hunger.

David writes in Psalm 63, “O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.” David is not chasing success or safety — he is thirsty for God Himself.

Then you see Paul in Philippians 3. He lists his credentials, his gains, his religious achievements — and then says he counts them all as loss for Christ. Why? “That I may know Him… and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings” (Phil. 3:7–10). This is a mature apostle saying, I still long to know Him.

Notice something consistent: spiritual hunger inevitably expresses itself in spiritual pursuit.

Moses ascends the mountain.
David rises early to seek.
Paul presses on.

If you want a simple gauge of your spiritual hunger, look at what you pursue. Not how much you serve Him — how much you seek Him. And refine that even further: how much do you seek Him for Him, and not for what He can give you?

Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” James 4:8 promises, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”

I can tell how hungry I am for God by what my schedule looks like.

Barriers to Spiritual Hunger

If hunger is so powerful, why do we lose it?

1. We Are Already Full

Proverbs 27:7 says, “A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb, but to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.”

We live in an age where everything competes for our attention — and not just our attention, but our affections. Entertainment. Media. Sports. Politics. Constant information. These things don’t just distract us; they capture our allegiance.

When we are full of other pursuits, our souls will not long for God.

I never fault people for having passion and desire. Even addiction is misdirected hunger. Our souls were made for God. When we don’t fill them with Him, we fill them with something else.

Anything we delight in and pursue more than God is an idol.

2. We See God as a Program, Not a Person

When Christianity becomes a system of belief instead of a living relationship, we treat God like vitamins instead of a love we cultivate.

Event-based Christianity produces shallow roots. If God is reduced to a church service, I will be spiritual when I’m there and unspiritual when I leave. But my relationship status with God should not fluctuate based on a building or a meeting.

I should not be more spiritual on Sunday than I am on Monday.

3. We Have Gotten Too Busy

In Revelation 2, Jesus confronts the church of Ephesus. They were diligent. They labored. They persevered. They held their doctrine.

But they had left their first love.

They were doing the work without the fire. The pathway back? “Do the first works.” Return to the practices that marked your early love for Him. Has the flame waned?

4. We Have Been Lulled to Sleep

Ephesians 5:14 says, “Awake, you who sleep.”

When subtle sins become normalized — pride, greed, anger, gossip, selfishness — we drift into spiritual slumber. Sin dulls desire. It numbs hunger.

Hunger for God begins with hunger for righteousness (Matthew 5:6). We turn from sin, and we turn toward Jesus.

Stirring Up Spiritual Hunger

If hunger has faded, it can be stirred again.

1. Get Empty

Let your soul feel the ache again. Stop filling every moment with noise. Take a digital reset. Practice silence. Shut down social media. Turn off Netflix.

If your soul never feels empty, it will never cry out.

2. Remember

Peter says in 2 Peter 1:13 that he writes to stir believers up by reminding them.

Remember seasons when God moved. Remember when your heart burned. Memory rekindles longing. Sometimes hunger is restored by remembering what it felt like to be near.

3. Pray for Revelation

Paul prays in Ephesians 1:17–21 for a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.

The more we see Him, the more we long for Him. Revelation of Him begets desire for Him. You cannot hunger deeply for someone you barely know.

4. Take a Season to Fast

In Matthew 4:4, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, Jesus says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

Fasting ties physical hunger to spiritual dependence. It exposes what sustains you. When you say no to natural food, you are reminding your soul that it was made for more than bread.

Final Thoughts

Spiritual hunger is not hype. It is not emotional intensity. It is a steady, deep longing for God that rearranges your life.

And here is the truth: God fills the hungry. If we want to be a people marked by His presence, it will not begin with strategy. It will begin with hunger. Allow the ache to awaken. Shift your schedule this week. Cut off the things that are stealing hunger. Take extra time to be empty and then press in. He promises to draw near if we will draw near. He promises we will find Him when we seek Him with all of our hearts.