Spiritual Progress Depends on our Hunger: Continually Emptied out to be Filled Up

All spiritual progress depends on our hunger, and unless we are freshly emptied in spirit to be filled with the Lord, we are indifferent to our own spiritual life and are in spiritual stagnation; God is helping us to progress with the Lord by giving us difficulties for us to open more deeply.

Oh Lord Jesus, we want to go on with You. Grant us to have spiritual hunger. Save us from being full in our spirit. Empty us of anything that is not You. We don’t want to rely on any knowledge and experience of Christ from the past; we want to have new and fresh experiences with You day by day! Amen!

The Lord is perfecting us and training us to be kingdom people, those who live in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens today.

As we read Matthew chapters 5 through 7 and realise what the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens is, we realise that, as citizens of the kingdom of God, this is how our living and behaviour should be.

Every country needs a constitution to exist, survive, and have proper law and order, even to have a proper administration and government.

As the Lord’s day draws near, as the Lord is coming and we yearn for Him to return and establish His own kingdom on this earth, He needs a people that would live in this kingdom and have the living of the kingdom of the heavens.

We need to be such ones today. We need to possess the reality of the kingdom, living under God’s rule and reign, and living by the life of this kingdom.

We all have received the seed of the kingdom of God, and we need to make sure that this seed will grow right and bear fruit. We need to ensure this seed would not be frustrated or hindered by us being negligent or careless.

As this seed grows, we become the kingdom of God. Then the Lord will have a beachhead among His people on this earth who live in this kingdom reality for Him to come back.

We should not think that the Lord’s coming back is some miraculous happening; the Lord is waiting for a kingdom people.

We in the Lord’s recovery thank and praise the Lord for His mercy and grace, and we want to go on with Him, advance with Him, and be prepared by Him to be His kingdom people today.

The Lord reveals to us what it means for us to be in His kingdom, and He is expecting us to live up to the standard He has shown to us.

The first thing we need to do for this, however, is that we would be emptied in our spirit. We need to be poor in spirit, for only those who are poor in spirit have the kingdom of the heavens.

Spiritual Progress depends on our Hunger: Open More Deeply for the Lord to Fill us

All our spiritual progress depends on our hunger (Luke 1:53; Psa. 81:10). The full ones, the rich ones, the Lord sends them away empty, but those who are hungry and empty, He fills them.

May we be filled with hunger for the Lord these days.

Are we as hungry now as we were when we were saved? When we were saved for the first time, we used to be so open, so hungry, and so emptied, so the Lord could fill us. But what about today?

It is a blessing for us to be hungry for the Lord. We should be afraid of self-contentment, self-satisfaction, and satisfaction with the things of the past.

The past is always something that can cause us to not advance with the Lord; not just the negative past but even more the positive things in our past. If we remain in the positive things of our past, we are at a standstill, and we cannot progress with the Lord.

This is why Paul said that he forgets the things which are behind and stretches forward to the things before to pursue Christ afresh and gain Him afresh.

What we experienced of Christ in the past is very good, but we need to stretch forward and gain more of Christ in a deeper way in our experience. We still need to gain more of Christ.

Many people are stuck and held back by their good past experiences. Spiritual stagnation is the result of indifference to our own spiritual lack. All our failures and decadence are a result of self-complacency.

The more we go on in the human life, the more complacent we can become. The more we go on, the more we are stuck.

Humanly speaking, this is so true; many of the older generation people cannot understand the new technologies, the new apps, the new trends, because they are full already, they are filled with many other information and much knowledge, so the new things have no more space in their being.

However, we need to be always be fresh, new, living, and open to the Lord in our Christian life, never being stagnant spiritually. Paul told Timothy that his progress would be known by all men.

We should not live in self-contentment, self-satisfaction, and boasting in things we learned from the past. Laodicea was stagnant spiritually; it is easy to become Laodicea since we have tasted what it means to be Philadelphia.

We may think that we are rich, we have many riches, we have garments, and we are not naked; however, if we come to the Lord and He shines on us, we realise that we are wretched, naked, and blind, and we need to come to the Lord afresh to buy from Him.

May we come ot the Lord and pay the price to buy the gold, the real gold, and also eyesalve to see more of Him. We have not yet arrived. We are not there yet. We need to pursue.

Our past victory can never be our present strength.

This is what happened to the children of Israel when they arrived at Ai; they thought that their past victory against Jericho qualified them to have a present victory at Ai (Josh. 7:3-4).

We may think that, now that we have the momentum and are victorious, we can go on victoriously; yet we are sorely defeated, for our past victory does not guarantee any future victory.

We need a daily renewal. We need to be renewed day by day, and we need to be emptied afresh moment by moment so that we may have spiritual progress.

We cannot go on without new knowledge of the Lord and a new vision of Him (Acts 26:16; Phil. 3:8, 10).

The Lord is always new, always fresh, always desiring to give us more of Himself. But if we are happy, if we are satisfied and contented, if we think we know it, even the Lord cannot do that much for us.

Those who are content with where they are, not even the Lord can help them. We need to open our mouth wide so that He can fill it.

We need to be open to Him, be empty and unloaded, and let Him fill us. Whenever we find ourselves crying, Lord, I can’t make it, our progress has begun; then God is able to create a desire for Him in us (2 Chron. 20:12).

The greatest peril in our Christian life is the loss of appetite. A lot of spiritual illnesses come due to the loss or reduction of appetite.

Whenever we lose the sense of hunger, whenever we feel like we don’t need to eat, we are actually dying. If we think that we do not need the Lord to fill us, that is the end of our spiritual progress.

May we open to the Lord afresh for Him to grant us an increased desire for Him. May we open to Him and let Him increase our spiritual hunger so that we may have spiritual progress.

May the Lord grant us the grace to open to Him more deeply for Him to fill us day by day, even moment by moment.

May we ask Him to give us an increased desire for Him, a hunger for the Lord, even to create in us a desire for Him.

Lord Jesus, grant us to have spiritual hunger today so that we may have spiritual progress. Save us from not being hungry. Oh Lord, save us from being self-contented and self-satisfied with where we are and what we have seen of Christ. Save us from being satisfied with the things of the past. Oh Lord, we do not want to stagnate spiritually. May we not be indifferent to our own spiritual lack. May we not be self-complacent; rather, may we come to You afresh, being hungry and thirsty for You. Oh Lord, may we see that our past victory can never be our present strength. May we realise that we can’t go on without new knowledge of the Lord and a new vision of Him. Amen, Lord, we come to You again and again. Create in us a hunger for Your word and for the things of God. Create in us a desire for Yourself. We can’t make it in ourselves, Lord, and we can’t go on without a new revelation of Yourself. Make us more hungry for You. Increase our hunger and desire for You so that we may advance in the Lord. Amen, Lord, we want to be always advancing!

Spiritual Progress is a matter of being Continually Emptied out and Continually Filled up

Our spiritual progress is not a matter of merely knowing and experiencing a lot from the Lord; spiritual progress is a matter of being continually emptied out and continually filled up.

We all have to admit that we are not as open and hungry for the Lord today as we were when we first touched Him.

When we first came into the church life, we were so hungry for the Lord and for the ministry, but now, after many years of being in the church life, are we still hungry for the Lord? Oh Lord!

We should remember that God gives us difficulties in order to dig more deeply in us so that He can fill us more with Himself (see Rom. 8:28-29).

The Lord wants to help us, in His mercy, to be more open to Him. He wants us to dig the well, dig out the dirt, and unload anything else so that He may fill us more.

Whenever we become empty, the Lord will fill us. Spiritual progress is a matter of being continually emptied out and continually filled up.

In 2 Kings 4:1-6, we see the story of the widow who had only a vessel of oil and some flour, and after the oil is finished, she would have nothing left. So she came to the prophet Elisha, who told her to go home, get vessels, as many as possible, and pour the oil into them.

This is what she did; she even borrowed vessels from the neighbours, and then closed the door, and poured the oil. The more vessels she had, the more oil there was. However, when there was no more open vessel, the flow of oil stopped.

When our vessel is open and emptied toward the Lord, He has a way to come in and fill us up. But when we have no more room in our vessel for Him, when there’s no more opening in us, the flow stops.

If we persist in self-reliance, presuming we are rich, for so much is filled with what we experienced of Christ, the Lord has no way to presently and freshly flow in us and through us.

He wants to give us more of Himself and grant us more victories, but unless we are more open to Him, He cannot do it. There must be much empty room in us for the Lord to fill us.

The work of the Holy Spirit is not “once empty then forever full” but “always empty and always full.” We need to continually open to the Lord and empty ourselves, and He will come in to fill us.

As the Lord said in Luke 18:17, we need to receive the kingdom of God like a little child so that we may enter into it. A little child is open, eager to learn and receive, and always ready to learn more things.

Humanly speaking, we may be older, not like a little child, but spiritually speaking, we need to never grow old but rather, always be open to the Lord to dispense more of Himself into us.

A little child is not filled with and occupied by old concepts; a little child can easily receive a new thought (see Psa. 139:17).

We need to be like little children, having an unoccupied heart so that we may receive the kingdom of God as a new thing.

We need to realise that it is not enough to be emptied once or twice; we need to be continually opened and emptied so that we may be continually filled with the Lord.

The work of the cross in us must be ever-increasing and ever-deepening so that the Lord may gain an open vessel for His divine dispensing.

May we see that our spiritual progress depends on our being continually emptied so that we may be continually filled with something fresh of Christ.

May we open to the Lord regarding this, telling Him in all honesty,

Lord Jesus, thank You for being our enjoyment and experience in the past; we now come to You to gain You more today! We want to have spiritual progress by continually being emptied so that we may be continually filled with You! Amen, Lord, may we empty ourselves so that You may fill us more! We open to You, Lord. May we take the difficulties You give us and allow You to dig more deeply in us so that You may fill us more with Yourself. Make us like little children. Make us those who are not filled or occupied but open and emptied to receive the new things of the new kingdom of God! Unoccupy our heart. We open to the ever-increasing and ever-deepening work of the Holy Spirit in us. Amen, Lord, may we be continually emptied out so that we may be continually filled up with Christ! Work in us, Lord, and gain more room in us. We open to You and we are willing to be emptied of what we are and have so that we may be filled with You!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 37, chs. 22-23, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crucial Aspects of Matthew 5 through 7 (2025 September ITERO), week 1, The Blessedness of Being Poor in Spirit and Pure in Heart That We May Be under Christ’s Heavenly Ruling as Our New King and That We May See God to Express Him in His Life and Represent Him with His Authority – day 2.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – The essence of the Kingdom is / A life that’s under heaven’s rule, / A life whose nature is divine / With Christ experienced in full. / Such is this life: in spirit poor, / With heart repentant, mourning, meek, / Which is to others merciful / And purely God Himself doth seek. (Hymns #944 stanzas 1-2)
  – Lord, how Your light makes clear / That we could not but e’er fail You; / Yet there’s a message true, / The seed of life within us will break through— / Lord Jesus, grow in us. / Make us in spirit poor; / Lord, take whate’er we think we know. / We’ll open to life’s flow, / And thus take in the life that makes us grow— / Lord Jesus, grow in us. (Hymns #1132 stanzas 4-5)
  – My heart is hungry, my spirit doth thirst; / I come to Thee, Lord, to seek Thy supply; / All that I need is none other but Thee, / Thou canst my hunger and thirst satisfy. / Feed me, Lord Jesus, give me to drink, / Fill all my hunger, quench all my thirst; / Flood me with joy, be the strength of my life, / Fill all my hunger, quench all my thirst. (Hymns #811 stanza 1 and chorus)