The Lord has been speaking to me today about desire. When God created man, He placed in him the ability to experience feelings and emotions. He enables us to give and receive love, to feel joy, happiness. He even enabled us to feel sadness and anger. God also placed within us the ability to feel desire. I believe that His intent was for us to desire Him, to want to be close to Him and to live in a relationship with Him. But, like so many other things, desire became corrupted by the fall of man.
The definition of desire is “to long or hope for.” Desire can be good or bad, depending on the motivation of the person experiencing the desire and what is being desired. So, what does God’s word say about desire?
For one thing, desire is a heart issue. In Matthew 6:21, Jesus said that our heart’s desires are dictated by what we treasure. If we treasure earthly things, then that is what our hearts will desire, but if we treasure the things of God, our desire will be for them. This doesn’t mean that all earthly things are bad. God does want us to have our heart’s desires, but He wants us to desire Him first. Psalm 37:4 says that those who delight in Him will be given their heart’s desires.
The Lord wants us to produce fruit for His Kingdom. In the parable of the seed in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, the seed represents God’s word, His message of Good News. This parable tells us that if we allow worries, wealth, or the desire for other things (seeking the things of the world over the things of the kingdom) crowd out the word of God in our lives, then we will bear no fruit (Mark 4:19).
So, what should we desire? We should desire God. We should desire a relationship with Him, desire to spend time with Him, desire to worship Him and praise Him. We should also desire the gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:31). We should desire to do what pleases God (Philippians 2:13). And, of course, we should have a desire for the word and the ways of God.
My prayer today is that I will always desire to seek the Lord and His righteousness above all else.
A Worshiper's Journal 