Desire - Part 2

In Part 1, I spoke about knowing where the desire we have come from.  Are they born out of your wants or are they there because God placed them there?  If you are trying to fill the desires for the stuff you want apart from God, then you’ll be disappointed because what we desire is worthless.  God longs to replace our desires with something real and perfect.  So what more can be said? 

It’s easy to say that I want my desires to be consumed with and fulfilled by God, but actually doing so fully and completely isn’t as easy.  Sometimes, and I know this is true for me, we pick and choose what desires we want God to effect and hold onto the ones that we don’t think He will “get right”.  We somehow convince ourselves that God is not capable of handling the stuff that is really important.  We’re afraid that if we give every desire to God, He may not fulfill that desire the way we want and then it won’t be perfect, because if anyone knows perfect, we do…right?

I think this is a bigger issue than surrendering every desire completely to God.  I think it has more to do with complacency in our walk with and refusal to take the steps toward growing in Christ.  Our first desire should be Christ.  He is the perfect fulfillment of every desire.  If He is truly our first desire, all the other desires can be put into perspective behind Christ and more easily given to God.  A.W. Tozer addresses this, by saying, “The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of Holy desire… Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people.  He waits to be wanted.  Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.”

Tozer said we should have an “Acute” holy desire for Christ.  That means that our desire for Christ should be of “critical importance and consequence”.  Our desire for Christ is so vital that without it Christ in His people will not be obvious or plain to others.  Without people plainly seeing and experiencing Christ through His people, why are we here?  Our desire for Christ is essential to showing others Christ, which is what He’s called us to.  Then all of our desires will be from Him and fulfilled by Him.

Desiring Christ,

Bruce

Desire - Part 1

Lately God has challenged me to evaluate where my desires originate from. For me it's a few specific things, but through that challenge God has revealed that it doesn't matter what the desire is for, but where it is born out of. Specifically, God gave me this question, "Are my desires born out of my wants or out of something that He placed inside me?"

So I spent days praying on it, meditating on what His word says and really struggling with answering that question.  Then a few days ago, as is usual for God, He answered the question He asked, for me. Turns out it was rhetorical and He already knew the answer. For the record, this is always the case. God doesn't ask us questions because He doesn't know; He asks to get us to seek the answer through seeking Him and to draw us out into the open. (That last part is compliments of Thomas, who by the way recently joined the real world of blogging - check out his blog HERE. He still does myspace, but this is a huge step.)

The specific answer to my part of the issue is inconsequential, but the bigger answer was revelational (I know not a real word), for me anyway.  The words that God kept pushing me to reconsider are found in Psalm 37.  In Psalm 37:4 David says:

"Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart's desires."

I always thought that meant if I found satisfaction in God, He would give me what I wanted. I was kind of a lot, way off. What God revealed is this: When I get to a point where EVERY desire I have, no matter what it is, is consumed with God and fulfilled in Him, then He will give me the desires He has in His heart for me, to me and those will be the desires of my heart. Then and only then will He fulfill the desires of my heart. I know it sounds a little confusing and I tried to make it not, but that's what He said to me and it really does make sense if you read it 187 times.

The thing is this, we look at the desires in our heart and they look perfect to us. They look like gold and diamonds, but all the while they're pyrite and glass. They look like the real thing and we can talk ourselves into believing they are, but they're actually worthless. God looks at our desires and longs to replace them with something real, something perfect. It may not always be the material things you want, that new car or home, but what He does give is so fulfilling, none of that other stuff matters. In his book, The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer says it so simply. He says, "The man who has God for his treasure has all things in one." For the man that has his desires given to and consumed by God, he already has EVERYTHING.

You Don't Have to Like It, You Just Have to Do It

Does God ever ask us to do things we really don't want to do? I don't know about you, but it seems like there are a lot of times that God tells me to do stuff, that without Him telling me, I would probably never do. So I think it's a pretty safe bet to say that God WILL ask us to do stuff we don't want to do. Maybe a better question is, Do we have to like everything God tells us to do? I was talking with a friend the other day about this (I'd give him a blog mention, but he still blogs on myspace. I thought they actually shut down myspace or that it got hacked and turned into a recipe sharing site, but he insists it is still functional as a social networking site.) Anyway, while talking about this, he mentioned God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.

If you're not familiar, God promised Abraham, when he was 99 years old, that he would be the father of many nations and that his descendants would number that of the stars in the sky. At this point in his life, Abraham had no sons. But God fulfilled that promise through Abraham's son, Isaac. Isaac was the hope and beginning of the entire Israelite nation. Many years later God commanded Abraham to take Isaac and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. Now, God did not actually want Abraham to sacrifice his son, it was a test of faith, but Abraham did not know this. Abraham had faith that God would take care of the situation and that God knew what He was doing. If Isaac was God's fulfillment of the promise to make Abraham the father of many nations, surely He would take care of this. But...imagine just for a second what Abraham must have been thinking. Not only was Isaac the way that God would fulfill His promise, but he was Abraham's son. It was his son, his only son and he loved him. In Genesis 22:2 God even acknowledges Abraham's love for Isaac by saying, “"Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love...”

Imagine the pain and frustration that Abraham must have been experiencing as he traveled, with Isaac, to the place of the offering, as he led Isaac up the mountain, as he bound his son (whom he loved) and placed him on the alter and finally as he raised the knife to offer his son to the Lord. I can barely comprehend the excruciating agony in all those tasks. How much anger, sadness, hurt, confusion did he carry? I' sure that he did not like or agree with what God had commanded him to do. Regardless of how he felt, Abraham did it. He was obedient to God. Now, he didn't actually sacrifice his son, but he went as God commanded. The Bible doesn't record whether he struggled with what God commanded of him, it simply says, “Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about.” (Gen 22:3) There is nothing written between God's commandment in verse 2 and Abraham's action in verse 3. Abraham just simply obeyed God, whether he liked it or understood it or not.

I don't think God expects us to be excited about everything He requires of us, but He does expect us to be fully obedient to everything He commands. Will we fall short? Of course we will, but we should desire to get to a point that when we hear the promptings and direction of the Holy Spirit, we obey them. Obedience is how we express our love to God. Being obedient in the things we desire is easy, real obedience is found in the things we don't understand or like. That is where God grows us and accomplishes God size stuff.