Singing Psalm 106 you replace your cravings as you remember in whose image you were made
Singing Psalm 106 can help you know who God is, who you are, the covenant between you, and move you to work with him to replace your cravings and deliver you from them.
“His people soon forgot His works, Did not wait for His will;But lusted in the wilderness, And God they tested still.” ~ Psalm 106:13-14
Can you be cured of unhealthy cravings? Recover from addictions?
There is no question that both physical addictions and a severing the covenant with the Lord exist among humans since the fall of man (Genesis 3). The question is: which came first? It might be placing the cart before the horse to say that it’s neurochemical imbalances in the brain that cause cravings because whenever you crave anything or anyone other than God, you become neurologically, chemically, psychologically, and physically imbalanced and dysregulated.
You choose sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously as the practice of being ruled by your thoughts rather than mastering them is often learned and passed down generationally. Like it or not, you are a social creature influenced by others. Though the brain can be a culprit it cannot take all the blame for your cravings.
Being made in his image (Genesis 1), the triune God built within you to love him with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength of body.
““You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” ~ Matthew 22:37
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. ~ John 13:34
When you are not loving God with all that you are, along with loving your neighbor as Jesus loves you, everything goes awry. As you are influenced by the one you love the most, you can replace your cravings by asking for the grace to replace your influencers.
Is it healthy to seek to eliminate your cravings?
“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.” ~ Luke 11:24-26
Sweep the house clean of lusts and cravings and seven more come to occupy that house. Your intentions, feelings, thoughts, words, and actions can’t just be wiped clean.
You desperately want to break the habit, resist the urges. Yet your attempts to replace your cravings with people or things relying on your own strength, you end up worse than you began.
Time and again, when God would rescue his people, not long after giving them relief from their oppressors, they would find a new idol of one sort or another to lust after.
Insisting on your independence from God, doing it your way, you replace your cravings without discernment and become enslaved all over again. Rather, depending on the Lord, he guides you in your decisions to prevent this vicious cycle from taking over your life.
Singing Psalm 106 you replace your cravings with a deep desire for the one who made your affections for himself
Singing Psalm 106 moves you to replace your feelings, thoughts, words, actions, and the intentions behind them to satisfy your mental or physical cravings with new intentions to please the Father. Your cravings can only be satisfied by Jesus, the one who made you.
Legion went from being naked, crying out, cutting himself, out of his mind, and unable to satisfy his cravings to being at peace, clothed, and in his right mind, desiring only to follow Jesus. He followed him in spirit telling the Decapolis of how Jesus made him whole, “and everyone marveled.”
Jesus leads you to become sick of the futility of seeking what doesn’t satisfy, and then to seek him, to desire him, to replace your cravings with himself, and to find peace in him.
Instead of being enslaved by addictions to other humans or substances of one kind or another, when you think of the Lord first and everything and everyone else is filtered through him, you are free to have undivided affection, allegiance, and devotion to him.
Jesus is the bread of life and the living water. When your life is consumed with him, you are satisfied. You are to be nourished and cared for by him like an unborn child tethered to and enclosed by his mother, umbilical cord intact.
Though you are walking, running, or wheeling around, sitting or laying down independently, the notion that you are to be independent from Jesus is the lie that keeps you craving something or someone else.
Because nothing and no one else can satisfy your need for the Lord your God, you walk around craving, enslaved until you fill yourself up with him.
He came not to enslave you but to set you free from slavery, to provide for you and protect you, to befriend you and be with you forever.
He overcomes your discomforts, your illnesses, even your death. Therefore, the only fear you ought to have is to not trust him.
Ask him to bring you to himself, that you would always trust him in everything and that you would never not trust him.
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. ~ John 6:35
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” ~ Matthew 11:28-30
Listen to what the good shepherd says: “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” ~ John 10:9-10
Singing Psalm 106 you replace your cravings for fleeting pleasures with everlasting delight
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. ~ 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Should you attempt to replace your cravings for one kind of food with another? Should you try to replace your cravings for a hard drug with a softer one?
Should you replace your cravings for hard liquor to craving beer or wine instead? Should you replace your cravings for chocolate with cigarettes or vaping?
The answer to all of those questions is that if you are addicted to anything or anyone other than the Lord your God, the triune God, you have a worship problem. You are choosing to worship false gods, idols that cannot save.
These are thieves that come only to steal, kill, and destroy.
Say ‘no’ to cravings for anything or anyone but the Lord your God.
How well and for how long will anything or anyone else love you?
Can anything or anyone else save you, give you abundant life?
Can money, possessions, experiences, relationships, reputation, position, screen time, sports, food, drink, or substances satisfy you for more than just a brief time, if that?
Don’t they often leave you feeling empty and wanting for more than they can offer?
As gifts in their right place, and in good measure, you can enjoy all of these except the poisons. Poisons aren’t gifts from God. They are cloaked as if of value by the evil one.
When elevating any of these to a craving that you think you cannot live without, you become enslaved by the very thing or person you thought would bring you pleasure.
High hopes in any of these lead only to disappointment.
Those who persist in following their cravings, God gives them over to their lusts so that they will come to their senses and see for themselves how they do not satisfy.
“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” ~ Romans 1:21-25
He humbles you so you will turn to him, the only one who can truly help you.
Your body will work against you until you love the Lord with all your physical strength, turn to him, and replace your cravings for anything or anyone else with him.
Your brain will work against you until you love the Lord your God with all your mind.
Your affections will work against you until you love the Lord your God with all your heart.
Your spirit will work against you until you love the Lord your God with all your soul.
Does envying someone ever bring you joy? Mistrusting your creator to apportion gifts to whom he thinks best can’t be good for you.
Can vengeance satisfy when someone repays you evil for good? You know your thoughts toward that someone can be worse than the evil done against you.
If the Lord is willing to forgive you for those thoughts, he would be willing to forgive that someone for the evil he has done. How much more, then, should you be willing to forgive that someone for his evil?
How satisfying would it be, rather, to hold out for the Lord to vindicate you? To wait for him? To trust in him? To depend on him instead?
Not only can he justify you before those who have caused you harm, but also he can bring them to have a change of heart so that one day they do good rather than evil.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ~ James 4:7
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
“Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.” ~ Titus 2:11-15
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” ~ 1 John 2:15-17
“Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”
“For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
“By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.” ~ 1 John 3:4-24
Craving the Lord and the Lord’s strength, you can be strong and courageous, practicing love for God and your neighbors, replacing your cravings, resisting lusts and, over time, they will flee from you.
What or who else is worthy to be your all in all?
Embrace healthy cravings to know, love, and please the Lord your God. Then you can receive all the gifts he gives you with thanksgiving.
You would worship the giver of those gifts rather than the gifts themselves. This gives ‘sweet cravings’ a whole new meaning as you replace your cravings with the sweetest gift of all, the Lord Himself.
“After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: ‘Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’” ~ Genesis 15:1
“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” ~ Hebrews 11:6
“O praise the LORD! O thank the LORD, For bountiful is He;Because His lovingkindness lasts Through all eternity.” ~ Psalm 106:1
“Blessed be the LORD, The God of Israel From everlasting to everlasting. Let all the people say. ‘Amen.’O praise the LORD!” ~ Psalm 106:48
December 9-16, 2022
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