appetite

While driving along a highway, I have often seen vultures soaring high overhead, swooping down, and then rising up again with the air currents. Every so often, a small group of them can be seen sitting right on the roadway, tearing apart and gobbling up the carcass of some unfortunate creature. I get the impression that these ugly birds are on the lookout continually for what is loathsome and repulsive!

Some people are like that. Nothing seems to satisfy them more than feasting on what is sinful, corrupt, and immoral. The books and magazines they read, the TV programs they watch, the conversations they engage in, and the activities they pursue reveal a vulture-like appetite.

How much better is the spiritual diet the Bible suggests: “Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy— meditate on these things” (Phil. 4:8).

What kind of “food” do you prefer? Don’t be like the vulture. Rather, “as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby” (1 Pet. 2:2).

O child of God, guard well your eyes
From anything that stains the heart;
Forsake those things that soil the mind—
Your Father wants you set apart. —Fasick

The new birth creates a new appetite and requires a new diet.

-richard de haan