What Do I Really Want?

Man was made to need God. God literally fashioned man for a specific purpose: to partner with God in tending what God has created.

This has very serious, sobering, and glorious implications. We were made to want things to happen. We were made towant to be beautiful, impactful, creative, enjoyed, helpful, necessary...

All the things we want are good, IF, and only IF, our desire is filtered through God's will, laid at His feet to only be acted upon in His way and timing.

Suppressing the desire inside of myself is one of the most harmful things I can do to my own life and the creation around me.

Suppressing desire is a prideful act, not a humble one. Truly embracing my desire as good but my ways of achieving it as evil without God is humble.

The desires in me, and my weak inability to fulfill them on my own and in my own leadership, are the very connection points created in me BY God, for God to join to my life.

Suppressing desire = denying God His rightful place in my life.

Denying my God-given needs and wants isn't humble, it's a manifestation of pride that produces shame. Acting on my God given desires and wants outside of God's leadership is also a manifestation of pride that produces shame. There is a narrow road available to me, though: asking and receiving.

*Feeling shame for wanting to be great is the devil's game.

*Choosing humility to be great is God's way.

I was made to want greatness, because I was made to live in God, who IS great. I'm not designed for greatness on my own. I'm literally designed for greatness IN God.

Luke 14:8-11 NKJV — “When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him; “and he who invited you and him come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place. “But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Can you see? The greatness comes with the Groom, not before.

The flesh makes a mess of this truth. Only the Spirit can see the humility in not fighting our nature, but rather embracing it.

Our flesh WANTS to be God. When it finds out what is right and good, rather than recognize our true nature... That we cannot be good without God... It wants to deny its nature in an effort to be good. This is the confusion brought on by the fallen flesh and the lying enemy of God. The result is always self-righteousness that leads to murder when that self-righteousness is rejected by God. (Think Cain and Abel)

The correct heart posture when we hear what God calls good and right is to say, "God, I want to be great in this, but cannot without you. I will sit in the poverty of my flesh and invite you (mourn it) until YOU come and make me right and good. Then my testimony will be one of meekness and not the glory of man."

The beatitudes of the sermon on the mount are steps up the Holy mountain of God. This is how they begin:

Matthew 5:3-5 NKJV — “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth..."

They end with the greatness of the humble... The exaltation of those willing to wait in their poverty of Spirit, calling out to God, until He changes their broken pride-filled flesh, so they see what is right, rightly!

The last beatitude is the "top of the mountain." The high place Yeshua will invite the humble to, and the exaltation of the humble: sharing he same life as Jesus. When this mindset takes over our lives, we start to see persecution as good. The persecuted church isn't the rejected victimized church... It's the one God approves of.

Matthew 5:10-12 NKJV — Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

This is the witness that Yeshua IS. He chose the low place to show us how to FULFILL our desire rightly.

Denying desire doesn't work. Bringing it to God, setting it at His feet, waiting on Him... This is what truly satisfies the human heart without killing what it wants...

This is what Jesus did and told us to follow:

Philippians 2:1-11 NKJV — Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Do you see how Jesus' resurrected flesh is made to be great forever?!

Self-denial is only rightly done while being Spirit-led. The Spirit never calls us to lie or suppress the truth. Our desires are real. The Spirit leads us to look them right in the eye and see how our flesh has corrupted them and failed to fulfill them, not deny their existence!!

Deny yourself doesn't mean "grit your teeth and push down what you want." It means "open your heart and tell God what you want, knowing His leadership, timing, and ways are much more efficient and right than what you could do on your own."

This is the mindset that all those who successfully wait on the Lord possess.

Hebrews 11:32-40 NKJV — And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented— of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

When you read the Bible, try to see people who truly wanted their desires fulfilled in God's way, rather than those who put to death everything they wanted to be "good for God," and you'll see it rightly.

Pretending to have good motivations is a lie. It is much better ot see our motivations as good desires naturally corrupted by our impatience, shame, and pride. Our motivations are only good if they are truly laid at God's feet in plain sight, believing His reward is greater than the cost of waiting on Him.