WIRED FOR ETERNITY

“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor and power. Let heaven fill your thoughts.”  (Colossians 3:1-2)

C. S. Lewis, the brilliant Christian apologist, noticed that everything that satisfies fails to satisfy completely. If we enjoy something, we always want more! Desires for such things as food, drink, and a home can normally be satisfied, but the lasting desires cannot be satisfied on this earth. This led Lewis to conclude that we were made for another world. There is a depth to human experience that will not and cannot reach fulfillment on this earth -- because we were made for heaven. “This world is not my home.” Time will never fulfill our deepest longings, because we were wired for eternity. 

-- Stuart Briscoe in “Daily Study Bible for Men”

#5768

THE SEEDS OF FAITH

A woman dreamed she walked into a brand new shop in a brand new mall. She was more than a little surprised to discover Jesus behind the counter. "What kind of merchandise is for sale here?" the woman asked. "Everything to fulfill all your burning desires," Jesus answered. The woman couldn't believe her ears: everything to fulfill all her burning desires?

After thinking it over, she decided to ask for only the very best things that any human being could passionately desire. "I would like to have peace of mind, and love, and freedom from fear, and genuine happiness," she finally said, then added, "And not just for me, but for the whole world... for everyone on the face of the earth."

Jesus smiled. "Perhaps you are misunderstanding," he said. "We don't sell fruit here. We only sell seeds."

-- Leonard Sweet in “A Cup of Coffee at the SoulCafe” 

#5285

BOUGHT WITH A PRICE

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  (Galatians 2:20)

"Do you not know that your body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body."  (1 Corinthians 6:19,20)

My life has been paid for by Jesus Christ. My life belongs to Him. Therefore, I can't do what "I" want to do, I must do what "He" wants me to do. 

-- Ron Brown, Assistant Coach, University of Nebraska, in Sports Spectrum

#4978

THE BEST, MOST SATISFYING

"So God created human beings in His own image. In the image of God He created them; male and female He created them."  (Genesis 1:27 NLT)

Clearly, God did not create us with desires simply so that we would renounce them. As Paul insisted, this world is God’s creation.  Like a loving parent, the God who created us wants for us the best, most satisfying life possible.

Christianity does not promise the ultimate in personal pleasure, a life oriented around hedonism.  Rather, it promises an ordering of life -- a putting together, not a reduction -- so that we realize pleasures as they were intended by our Creator.  Otherwise, we risk indulging to our own destruction, like an alcoholic who determines how much to drink.  Abuses arise from regarding pleasure as an end in itself rather than a pointer to something more.  "Perfect are the good desires You have given me," prayed Pascal; "Be their End, as You have been their Beginning."

-- Philip Yancey in “Rumors of Another World”

#4952

SEEKING GOD’S WILL

“For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him.”  (Philippians 2:13 NLT)

The first thing to do as you seek God’s will is to deny yourself. Examine your heart for any selfish or worldly motives -- come to the point where you are certain your only desire is to know and to do God’s will…

God will never lead you to do something that contradicts His written Word. If what you sense in prayer runs contrary to Scripture, it is wrong. For instance, God will never lead you to commit adultery, to steal, or do anything that goes against His biblical precepts. Watch for God to use the written Word to confirm what you are sensing in prayer. Don’t play games with God. Don’t look for a Scripture that seems to say what you selfishly want to do and then claim it is God’s will. That is dangerous. Don’t do it. 

-- Henry Blackaby, Richard Blackaby and Claude King in “Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God”


#4530

INTIMACY WITH GOD

“Show me Your ways, O Lord;
Teach me Your paths.
Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
On You I wait all the day.”  (Psalm 25:4-5 NKJV)

It would seem that admission to the inner circle of deepening intimacy with God is the outcome of deep desire. Only those who count such intimacy a prize worth sacrificing anything else for are likely to attain it. If other intimacies are more desirable to us, we will not gain entry to the circle… The place on Jesus’ breast is still vacant, and open to anyone willing to pay the price of deepening intimacy. We are now, and will be in the future, only as intimate with God as we really choose to be.

-- J. Oswald Sanders in “Enjoying Intimacy with God”


#4456

A PANTING DEER

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for You, my God.” (Psalm 42:1)

This psalm got made into a song, and sometimes when people sing it they think it means they are supposed to long for God or like church services and church songs.  But this psalm is much bigger than that.  It means that God is my life-giver and therefore my desire for life cannot be satisfied apart from Him.

This is not a picture of Bambi wandering through a leafy-green, stream-laden forest with a slightly parched throat.  This is desert country.  No rivers, just wadis -- gullies that would contain water only in the rainy season.  Now the wadis are dried up, and the deer is going to die if it doesn’t find water.  That is us.  We were made for soul satisfaction and simply die without it.

If you want life, you want God.  You want Him the way a deer dying of thirst wants water.  You want God more than you know.

-- John Ortberg in “The Me I Want To Be”


#4113

WALKING DOWN THE WRONG ROAD

“Do not quench the Spirit,” Paul says. (1 Thessalonians 5:19)  Any time I have a desire, the Spirit will prompt me to set it before God and ask the question, “Lord, what do You want me to do with this?” Or I can simply ask regarding any course of behavior, “If I walk down this road, where will it lead in the long run -- toward or away from the me I want to be?”

God will never lead us to manage a desire in a sinful way. If I want to walk down the wrong road, I must begin by silencing God’s divine voice within me. I must be careful not to pray about this desire with a submitted spirit. I must make sure I don’t talk about this desire with wise friends who will hold me accountable. I must make sure I don’t look carefully at passages of Scripture on the subject and reflect on them. I must do all these things without recognizing I am doing them. I must keep myself in a state of spiritual and mental vagueness where God is concerned.

-- John Ortberg in The Me I Want To Be

#3983

PASSION IN OUR HEARTS

What puts the passion in our hearts for a particular cause or concern? Many people of faith believe that God is the One who places the desire within us, and that He then proceeds to enable us to fulfill the desire as He works with us in the situation. One person is stirred up by a need; another is deeply troubled by a crime or an injustice. In all our various calls to action, God is available -- helping us right the wrong, meet the need, fight the crime, overcome evil with good.

-- Stephen Arterburn in The Power Book


#3514

YOUR HEART'S DESIRE

Christianity is not an invitation to become a moral person.  It has a powerful effect upon our lives, but when transformation comes, it is always the after-effect of something at the level of our hearts.

At its core, Christianity begins with an invitation to desire.  During Jesus' ministry, He came along and started appealing to desire.

To the weary, Jesus speaks of rest.  To the thirsty, of living water.  To the lost, He speaks of finding your way.  Jesus takes people back to their desires.  "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7).

Jesus provokes desire; He awakens it; He heightens it.  When the religious watchdogs accused Him of heresy, He says, "Not at all.  This is the invitation God has been sending all along."

-- John Edlredge in The Journey of Desire


#3407

LOOKING BEYOND OURSELVES

Our lives form some sort of pattern whether or not we consciously arrange it. I have friends whose lives center on material possessions.  They scour the stock market pages each day, maintain houses in several countries, and buy new luxury cars every year.  I have other friends who work at minimum-wage jobs in deliberate rebellion against parents who pressed them relentlessly to achieve.  I have friends who boast about their seventy-to-eighty hour workweeks, and others who boast about sleeping till noon each day.  Some women I know spend several hours each day keeping fit and making themselves beautiful; others have greasy hair, wear no make-up, and disdain standards of beauty.  I know a wine connoisseur who stores ten thousand bottles of vintage wine in humidity-controlled coolers; I know an alcoholic who can't keep a single unopened bottle in his house.  One neighbor practices two hours every day, using a homemade lectern and reaction-monitoring device, toward his goal of becoming a contestant on the TV show Jeopardy.  A girl down the street lives for weekend rave parties at nightclubs.

These life patterns grow out of natural desires and longings.  Our bodies desire food, drink, stimulation, pleasure, sex.  At another level, we also long for beauty, love, security, worth, meaning, belonging.  Everyone has such longings, and how we respond to them depends largely on what we believe about why we’re here.

If I see myself as one more species of animal, with no life beyond this one and no accountability to a Higher Power, then why not follow the pleasure instinct to the end?  On the other hand, if I see this planet as God's world, and my longings as rumors of another world, then I want to connect those clues to God's overall plan.  I want to bring the two worlds together, and I do so by accepting that we human beings must look beyond ourselves -- above ourselves -- for direction in ordering our desires.

-- Philip Yancey in Rumors of Another World

#2971

PROSPERITY

Prosperity depends more on wanting what you have than having what you want.

-- Geoffrey F. Abert

 
#2926

DESIRE FOR HEAVEN

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world… I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country which I shall not find until after death. I must make it the main object of my life to press on to that other country.

-- C. S. Lewis


#2507