May 1, 2017

"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

All this week I have been sharing with you on the thought "either you control your desires or your desires will control you." As we come to the end of this study on temptation we are face to face with the fact that people usually end up doing what they want to do. Most people are driven by their desires. They don't have to be, but most are.

The key to controlling your desires is to forget about your desires and focus on what God desires.

In this Psalm the Psalmist tells you three ways to do that and we have talked about two of them:

Want God - "trust in the Lord and do good"

Worship God - "delight yourself in the Lord"

Today you will learn the third thing God desires - Walk with God - "commit your your way to the Lord"

In the Hebrew the word for "commit" is literally translated "roll". "Roll your way on the Lord" or in other words, "roll with the Lord". Since we don't roll, walking with the Lord is a good translation.

When God first created Adam, they walked together in the paradise of Eden. That fulfilled God's desire and made Adam happy, too.

It stands to reason that if God desired to love Adam and to be loved by Him, and if God created you with a need to love God and to be loved by Him, then wanting Him and worshiping Him and walking with Him should satisfy you both!

When God IS your chief desire, His desire is met and so is yours!

April 30, 2017

"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

Everyone wants to know how to get God to give them the desires of their heart. Delight in the LORD seems easy enough! So, how does one delight in the LORD? There have been many fanciful interpretations of what it means to delight yourself in the LORD, but only one revelation of what this means is found in the Scriptures.

"Delight" here in Psalm 37:4 is the Hebrew word "oneg", which means "to treat as a delicacy." There are very few places in the Scriptures were the word "oneg" is used. Yet, because it is a rarity, it will help us solve a mystery. There is one place, and only one, where it tells us exactly how to delight in the LORD, even using the word "oneg".

This word used in the combination and context as it is here has the connotation of worship, which brings us to our second idea of how to desire God. We should WANT Him more that we want anything else on the planet. In the words of the Psalmist, "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?"

A second way He tells us we should desire Him is through WORSHIP. What does that mean?

Our word "worship" comes from to old English words "worth - ship" and literally means "giving worth" to God. What gives worth to God? Your devotion and desire! So, if you want to keep your desire above temptation make God the object of your chief desire. Honor Him with your emotion and your will.

Worship is so much more than what you often think. When you think about worship you may think about several songs an offering and a sermon. If worship is only a one hour per week deal with you, you will not give God the worth He desires - and deserves. Worship is a 24/7 and a 365 proposition. Worship is absolute devotion to God. As the Apostle Paul, one of the most devoted Christ-followers of all time, wrote: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship."

If you want to strengthen yourself against temptation aim your desire - your wants and your will - at God. In other words, worship Him. Not just for an hour on Sunday, but live a life-style of worship. Live in His Word daily, that's worship. Walk in His ways daily, that's worship. Love your spouse and your children, that's worship. Give eight hours work for eight hours wages, that's worship. Whatever you do you do it as unto the Lord - that's worship. That is what He desires and therefore, what you must desire.

This is what the Psalmist meant when he said, "Delight yourself in the Lord". 

Will you take delight in Him today? 

Will you aim your want and your will at Him? 

How will you do that today?

April 29, 2017

"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:" Psalms 37:3-5

Desire is a combination of emotion and intellect. 

Desire is part want and part will. Temptation is a battle over where we will aim our desire.

The First Adam aimed his desire at a lie and we have been a deceived race since.

Jesus, the Second Adam, aimed His desire at God and remained holy.

What about you? Are your desires being steered by your wants or by your will?

The Psalmist knew about desire. He wrote some of the most personal, poignant, and passionate poetry ever written. Few people have chased God harder than David. He gives us some insights here in Psalm 37 that you could benefit from. The Psalm promises that if you, "delight yourself in the Lord" the Lord will "give you the desires of your heart".

So, the question becomes, how do you do that? How do you delight yourself in the Lord?

Before we explore that, let me point out something even more obvious - you must first desire to please God. You must decide that God's desires are more important than your desires. You will not be delighted in God if He is not your chief desire.

What does that look like?

"Trust in the Lord...." The word picture painted here means "to rely on", "to be confident", "to lean your full weight on" Him.

The first way to delight in the Lord is to WANT Him more than to want anything or anyone else. Aim all of your desire at Him. Make it the purpose of your life to meet His desires. Don't even make it about your desires - focus on satisfying His!

When you want the Lord more than anything, temptation loses it's strength against you! I doubt if the devil will tempt you toward desiring God.

Will you aim your desires at God today? 

Will you make Him your chief desire? 

Will you confess and surrender any misplaced desires?

Chief Desire

"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

The more I study this Psalm the more insight I gain into the relationship between desire and temptation. And make no mistake, there is a strong relationship! Temptation happens at the intersection of your desire and your will. If you have no desire for something then you can't be tempted by it. It really is that simple. For the most part, people end up doing what they most desire to do.

So, that is why desire matters and that's why if you have any hopes of defeating temptation you must be in touch with and in charge of your desires.

But this morning, the issue I want to address is this, what should you desire? The answer is simple - you should desire what God desires. Or even better than that, you should desire God! God should be your chief desire! The fact is, unless God is your chief desire - HE IS NOT YOUR GOD!

So what is it that God desires and what do we need to desire in order for Him to be our God? The Psalmist mentions three things. 

But for now I want to focus like a laser on your chief desire. What is it? Is there something you desire more than you desire God? Do you love God because He is your chief desire or do you love Him hoping that He get you what you desire? Are you serving Him or are you trying to get Him to serve you? Only you - (and Him) - know the true answer to that. And ultimately you will answer to Him for that.

As I conclude this thought for this morning I want to tie together several statements that I have made during this series on temptation. First, "we are tempted because we are sinners and we sin because we're tempted". In other words, when our desires are wrong and when our desires are not lined up with God we will be tempted more! Second, "temptation is a test that reveals what we love most". What you desire will be exposed by how you are tempted and where you yield to temptation.

Adam sinned at the moment God ceased to be his chief desire. 

Jesus resisted sin because God was His chief desire! 

How about you?

The "Good" Thing

"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

Temptation happens at the point of your desire. That is abundantly clear in the temptation of Adam and Eve as it is in the temptation of Jesus. Adam and Eve were controlled by their desire and sinned against God. Jesus controlled His desire and remained sinless. So, it seems that you are confronted with an option, "either you control your desires or your desires will control you". Therein lies the battle of temptation. Will you be controlled by your emotions or will you exercise your will to control your emotions?

There are some who believe you cannot control your desires and that you are a slave to them. No thanks to Adam and Eve, it is difficult to gain control over your desires. Once they exercised their will against God it perverted their desires. That is the nature we inherit from them.

So, how do you get control of your desires? How do we keep your desires from controlling you? The Psalmist, who is very open about his struggles to gain control over his desires, shares some insight into how he does it.

"Trust in the Lord". The word for "trust" means to "lean on" or to "rely on" or to "put confidence in" God. The word picture portrayed is the idea of putting your total trust into God. It is like when you sit in a chair. You put your total weight into that chair and completely trust it. When you put the key in your car you totally trust it to start. When you lie down on your bed you totally trust it to support you. You must "trust, rely, lean on" God to help you control your desires. By the power of your will you choose to aim your emotions at God.

"do good". When you place your trust completely on the Lord He will guide you and strengthen you to "do good". Notice it does not say that you should desire to do good, it simply says to "do good". People who are controlled by their emotions and desires will only "do good" when they feel like it. But people who control their desires do good whether they feel like it or not!

Jesus probably didn't feel like dying on the cross. But he "did the good" that His Father desired of Him. Jesus probably felt like turning those stones into bread - partly because He was very hungry and partly because he wanted to show the devil that He really could after the devil challenged His "godhood". How do you feel when someone challenges your manhood? You want to show them, don't you? Imagine being God and having some inferior being challenge your "godhood".

So, here it is. Another day, another battle with temptation. Temptation will be there to meet you at your point of desire and you will either control your desire or be controlled by it. You can trust your own strength to take charge over your emotions or you can rely on God and trust Him to help you do good.

The first "good" thing you can do today is to put Him in charge of your emotions AND your will!

April 26, 2017

"...because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."  Hebrews 11:6

The old saying claims, "You do for love what you wouldn't do for money."

That is proven every Sunday in every church nursery when faithful volunteer workers change stinky diapers of infants who are not theirs. Yep, that's love!

When someone volunteers to sit in a nursery filled with stinky bawling babies, what are they looking for? Why do they do that? It isn't fun or pleasant. It doesn't do much for them.

Motive matters and when you are a nursery worker you are not doing it for the reward you are probably doing it for the relationships.

This verse states that "God is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him".

Are you seeking God for a reward or are you seeking Him for a relationship? Is your faith based upon what you hope to get from Him or are you seeking  to know Him?

Hebrews 11 is the Christian Heroes Hall of Fame (or Hall of Faith). What made these men and women exemplary was not just what they did, but what motivated them to do it.

Noah labored every day for over 100 years building something he had never built before to prepare for something he had never seen before! Why was he doing that? What reward was he seeking? He didn't get paid by the hour nor was he on salary. He not only had to pound the nails into the boards and seal then with pitch - he had to make the nails, he had to cut down the trees and draw the tar out of the trees. There were no Lowes or Home Depots in that day.

Noah wasn't in it for the reward. I believe he was in it for the relationship with God.

You could go through this list of great people and ask, "Were they after a reward or were they wanting a relationship?" I believe the answer would be the same, they wanted to please God through their obedience. And they did! They altered history! They changed the world! They changed lives!

In the end they discovered an amazing truth - God IS their reward! They found that what Who He is far exceeds anything we could ever receive from Him.

Are you seeking God for what you can get from Him? Are you after the reward more than you're after the relationship? God can't reward self-seeking. You run the risk of missing both the reward and the relationship - which, in fact, IS the reward!

April 25, 2017

"After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.  “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.’"  Luke 10:1-9

For the 45 years I have been privileged to serve in pastoral ministry I have read many books and attended many seminars and been exposed to many different plans or strategies of discipleship. Discipleship IS the deal for those of us who claim the Name of Jesus. But it was never meant to be a program or a strategy, it is intended to be a lifestyle. It is what He expects us to do!

In this encounter between Jesus and His disciples He demonstrates the model for making disciples. I invite you to pay close attention to how Jesus changed these followers into disciples.

First, Jesus did ministry and they watched. He preached the gospel and declared the Kingdom, healing the sick, delivering the captives, casting out demons, and doing miracles. While they were impressed and amazed, it often seemed like they really didn't grasp the significance of Who He is and what He came to do. But He ministered in power and authority and they watcher.

Second, Jesus did ministry and they helped. When He fed the five thousand He had them find the loaves and fishes. Then He had them help organize the crowd and hand out the food. Finally, He asked them to gather up the leftovers. He did ministry and they helped.

Third, Jesus sent them to do ministry and He watched. They discovered that when they went in His Name declaring His Kingdom healing happened and deliverance happened and salvations happened! Not only did they change lives but their lives were changed in the process!

Fourth, Jesus celebrated with them when they returned from their mission trip with stories galore! When His Kingdom came the kingdom of darkness fell!

Finally, as Jesus prepared to ascend into Heaven following His death and resurrection, He commanded these disciples whom He had disciples to go and make more disciples. In other words, they were to do ministry while others watched. Then they were to to ministry together. After that they were to let the others minister while they watched and then all of them would celebrate together!

Disciples disciple! It is what they do! It is how they live. It is why they live!

Who are you discipling? 

Who is discipling you? 

Are you spending your life or investing it?