Saturday, July 18, 2020

Your wants or God's desires? You Choose.

Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He 
shall give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

Your relationship with God ought to bring you more joy, satisfaction, and pleasure than any other relationship, activity, or material possession you have. Scripture exhorts you to delight yourself in the Lord, finding your greatest pleasure in God and the things dear to His heart.
How can you find pleasure in what God enjoys? Only as you spend time with Him will you begin to take delight in the things God loves. As you spend intimate time with God and allow Him to show you your situation from His perspective, you will begin to see things as God sees them. As you adjust yourself to God, your heart will begin to desire the same things God's heart desires. When you pray, you will find yourself asking for the very things God desires. Matters foremost on God's heart will be preeminent in yours. Your first request in prayer will not be for yourself, but for God's name to be exalted and His kingdom to be extended (Matt. 6:9–10).
Have you been asking God to give you the desires of your heart without first seeking to understand what is on His heart? God places this important requirement for those who pray: that we seek His priorities and make them our own. This great qualifier prevents us from asking out of selfishness. As we find joy in the Lord, we will see what is truly important, and we will long for these things as the Father does.
- Blackaby Experiencing God Day by Day 

Quite often we get it backwards in regards to our wants and needs in life.  I know that I certainly do at times.  Of all that I have, it's honestly astonishing to me what all I do have.  I explain to people of my hobbies, my likes and dislikes.  God has certainly more than abundantly provided in our lives.  

Sometimes though those can be a snare. 

Being abundantly supplied in say money, what should be the outcome of such a thing?  Spend it on yourself or on others? 

There are very few that I have met or read about that have really not wanted a simpler life.  If you pressed them on it they all would say the same. At least the older people. 

But what about pain and sorrow? What about suffering? 

I have read through the book of Job many times.  In spite of all that you read in it, do you realize what you don't see Job asking for?  It's not that he doesn't know that the Lord's behind what's happening. Job's big question is not centered on God taking it away but rather on why God is doing it. Of which, in this life, he never does get an answer.  I know in my roughest days I am not above asking Jesus to remove that which is causing it.  Job was going through some hellish suffering here on earth but his view was his life was in God's hands regardless.  

As each year goes by my thoughts keep going backwards to when life was simpler.  I have no desires for the most up and coming technology or in other things.  I stopped watching most television.  I do have some movies but it's incredibly rare for me to watch the whole thing. I just fast forward to the big finish an that's it.  The idea of sitting and doing that much nothing has become a problem for me. 
As someone once said if it needs done it isn't going to be done if someone doesn't get it started.  

I will admit to an almost insatiable curiosity to learn how to do things.  Where most people want to veg out with a movie marathon or binge watching television, I would find greater satisfaction in learning how to fix or make something. 

But even that desire can be a snare. 

I was blessed in a great many ways to have been able to learn from so many Godly men in my life.  To watch people is actually a hobby of mine.  As I told someone recently, I listen more than people realize.  I may not act on it but I listen to pretty much every conversation that my ears can hear.  Very rarely do I block things out.  That rarity would be when I am attempting to work on building or fixing something. 

Bringing this back around...I struggle in letting go at times of thinking and things that aren't what Jesus desires to be in my life.  There was a time when a hobby of mine that I thought was becoming something in the way of my Christian life, I pretty much removed it all.  Evidently that was not what God had in mind because he restored it all and then some.  

God's desires should indeed be ours. We have to choose in each decision if what we are about to do is necessarily a God honoring or me honoring thing. 

The fact of liking something a little too much can open a door to temptations that we are not strong enough to take down on our own.  

Choice is what both believers and unbelievers have been given since Jesus was raised from the dead.  Choice only begins in accepting or rejecting the offer of Salvation.  After we make that choice, other choices are to be made.  In a believer it's learning what's right and acceptable to Jesus.  Then removing what isn't.  It's a choice to do so or not.  The thing is, sooner or later you will see it God's way and look back upon a wasted life fighting Him on it. Unbelievers face the exact same question every time, every day, to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior or not to.  No other choice is before them.  Making moral decisions that align with Scripture means nothing at the day of Judgement. They still will have rejected Christ. 

You need to look at your own heart.  Are you living for Jesus or your own desires?   That which is so important to you now to go after...is it what God wants of you or is it what you want?  It may indeed be something God wants for you but He is waiting for us to choose Him first before it's granted.  You may still succeed in getting what you desire but it will not come with the level of satisfaction that you would have had if God had been the one to work it out for you. 

This virus is nasty but if we indeed believe that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, then we need to look for what God is desiring to do and join Him in doing it.
That's our choice as believers. To join Jesus in the Father's plans or to live life our way n answer for that choice later when we give an account face-to-face with Jesus.   Ball is in your court...

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