Govern your desires and you will rightly direct your life.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Matthew 5:6 NKJV.
Life is driven by desires and appetites, not casual whims. Those desires can be oriented spiritually or will originate carnally. As early as the Garden of Eden, human nature has suffered from a resident fallenness which is not naturally inclined heavenward. “When [Eve] saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and . . desirable to make one wise, she took of the fruit . .” Genesis 3:6 NKJV. Her direction was set when her natural desires overpowered her longing to obey God.
Desire must be wisely governed and purposefully directed or will express your baser nature. Know this; wrong appetites are never fully satisfied. Right desires and Godly appetites always are. “Take delight in the Lord and He will give you your heart’s desires.” Psalm 37:4 NLT. In describing the pathway to “supreme blessedness,” Jesus promised, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6 NKJV. The original word translated as “filled” is so much more. The Greek word suggests the idea of “being saturated.”
The Biblical concept is more akin to the Bible’s description of a person experiencing, “. . good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over . . filled with all the fullness of God . . always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance . .” See Luke 6:38/Ephesians 3:19/2 Corinthians 9:8. Even those superlatives are inadequate to describe all God desires for you. Clearly, the Father’s will for you is overflowing, everlasting fullness but His love for you will not allow your satisfaction with unworthy desires. Read Isaiah 55:1-2 NIV.
Life is not really determined by your decisions and directions; those are just symptomatic. Decisions and directions are subtly, or strongly, determined by your desires. Govern your desires and you will rightly direct your life. David learned first-hand the danger of not monitoring and ruling his desires. In repentance, he sought to recapture the purity of his heart for God – the recovery of his “first love.” See Revelation 2:1-5 NKJV. “One thing I have desired of the Lord; that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.” Psalm 27:4 NKJV. See Psalm 42:1-2 NLT.
Jesus was clear about the power of desires and appetites to direct a person’s life in pursuit of things either perishable or imperishable: “But you shouldn’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that I, the Son of Man, can give you. For God the Father has sent me for that very purpose . . Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’” John 6:27 NLT/7:37-39 NIV.
My prayer for you today is that you desire the highest and best of all that is eternal.