What Is Your Heart’s Desire?
What is your heart’s desire? Is it to be happy? Have a family? Be financially stable? Or perhaps you would say that your desire to be more like Jesus or to be the best Christian you can be. As followers of Christ, we are called to see the world through the eyes of God. So to put it simply, His desires should become our desires.
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We live in a culture today where tolerance is preached from the mountain tops, and moral relativism is more than popular. On the surface, both of these concepts seem very inviting. We can believe and worship as we choose, and those around us need to just accept us for “who we are.” We’re taught at a young age that you can never go wrong when you are true to yourself and you follow your heart. The Bible tells us, however, that the human heart can’t be trusted. And if it can’t be trusted, should we be trying to follow it?
“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” – Jeremiah 17:9
Just because our hearts desire something, doesn’t mean that we should run after it. As an example, my toddler has many wants and desires and makes them well-known to the adults in her life, but we have to say no sometimes when we know that giving her what she wants may not be in her best interest. Her heart’s desire is constantly changing and growing. What she wants today will inevitably change by tomorrow.
Not unlike a loving parent, God desperately wants us to be spared from the harm that sin can bring into our lives. When someone becomes a follower of Christ, they choose to give up the desires of their own heart in order to chase after His. Based on my own personal experience, His desires for us are so much greater than anything we can imagine for ourselves.
The amazing thing about Christianity is that God sets us free from our sinful hearts. We will still experience negative thoughts and temptations, but God gives us the strength to run from our worldly desires.
By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. – 2 Peter 1:3-4 (NLT)
Before we choose to follow Christ, our heart does nothing but deceive us. It tells us what we think we want, we chase after it, and that “thing” we were chasing never fills the void we were trying so desperately to fill. So we keep chasing…
As Christians, however, we have found the answer. We have Jesus, the only One who can bring true salvation and joy to a person’s life. When we choose to surrender our hearts to Him, He renews them. He makes us whole, and we no longer have to chase the things of this world that never satisfy.
So if we are called to desire what God desires…what is God’s desire?
God’s desire is for every heart to know Him. From the very beginning, that is all He ever wanted. He desires to call us His own children and for us to grow and mature in Him – to be everything He destined us to be.
Until our desires match His, we will never truly be satisfied with our heart’s desire.
So what is your heart’s desire?
*Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.
