Monday, April 26, 2010

April 26, 2010

"Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:" Psalm 37:3-5
Over the past month we have been examining the strategy that the devil used to tempt Adam and caused him to fall. We have identified the four step strategy as follows: Doubt - he got them to question the character and the caring of God and the consequences of their sin. That led to a Delay - they gave sin and temptation a second thought. When they dwelt on the temptation and delayed their obedience, they sinned. Then they were open to Deceit. When they doubted the truth they were susceptible to the lie. That is exactly what happened. We inherited the wreckage from that rebellious decision.
It is no great mystery that what occupies your mind and your spirit will shape your desires. An undeniable truth of life is that you either control your desires or they control you! How you control your desires is going to be the focus of our blogs this week.
There are two fundamental choices that drive our desires. It is at this very point that the serpent dealt with Adam and Eve. Those two choices are: will I please God or will I place my desires ahead of what pleases Him?
We have already established that God gave you a free will because He wants you to choose to love Him so that your love means something to Him. The fact that Barbara is a very strong and capable and independent woman who has chosen to love me makes her love special to me. She was doing fine before I showed up and she would do fine if I disappeared, but she wants to be in a loving relationship with me. By her choice she has made her desire clear. Wow! That's special!
So it is with God. And the Psalmist, as usual, nails the point of this love issue. He mentions three incredible truths about how to handle your desires in relationship to God:
1) God desires to be what you desire most in life.
2) God desires that you get what you desire most in life and for eternity.
3) When God is your greatest desire, you get Him and everything else you desire most!
Wow! What a deal! How do I get that?
As the Psalmist says, "Delight yourself in Him...."
What does that mean? We will go into detail about that in this week's blog postings.
For today, for you, here's the question of the morning - "Being as honest as I know how to be before God, what do I desire more than I desire God?" When the Holy Spirit reveals those things to you, repent of them and ask God to occupy first place in your desire. Delight yourself in God one desire at a time!