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Jul 15, 2023 06:00am

Dethroning Desire

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We often look at the desires of mankind as inherently bad, but truthfully God has made us and has created in us certain innate desires.

For example, it’s perfectly normal and reasonable for us to desire safety, understanding, comfort, belonging, worth, and significance. These desires in and of themselves are not wrong. They only became problematic when sin entered the world and man was forever cursed to struggle with a sin-nature. Our sin-nature leads us to pursue the kingdom of self by trying to fulfill these desires in our own way, according to our own logic, and according to our own time frame, which is typically apart from God.

Proverbs 21:2 states it this way: Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. When seeking to fulfill these desires apart from a trusting, obedient, relationship with God, our desires can become idols and act as dictators on the throne of our hearts.

In II Peter chapter 1, Peter tells his fellow believers that God has given to us all that is necessary for life and godliness by calling us into relationship with Him. This means in our relationship with Christ, we can find fulfillment for the innate desires that drive us. Does this mean we will never experience discomfort, pain, or fear? No, it does not. As long as we are living in a sin-cursed world with sin-cursed bodies we will experience struggle, but the provision of Christ’s death on the cross means we can struggle without condemnation because Christ took upon Himself the responsibility of being our substitutionary sacrifice for sin. God gave us these desires so that we would learn that they can be fulfilled by Him. When we choose a relationship with Him, it’s because we desire Him not because we are forced. The wonderful thing about choosing a relationship with Christ is that as we willingly submit to Him, He lovingly guides us into ways that are for our good and will prosper and fulfill us, in His time and in His ways.

Satan, on the other hand, uses our desires against us. He will often deceive us into thinking he wants us to have whatever we desire, but he prefers we pursue those desires in our own way since he desires our destruction.

I Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking who he may devour.” It’s very interesting to me that Satan seeks to control us with our own desires while God gives us freedom to choose. This distinction is the difference between love and hate. God’s love wants us to choose Him as our King so that we can enjoy being in His kingdom and find fulfillment in Him. Satan wants us to put our desires on the throne of our life, because he knows those desires will never be fully satisfied apart from God and so we will effectively self-destruct.

Psalm 10 puts all of this into perspective beautifully. Verse 3 and 4 of this chapter say, “the wicked man boasts of his heart’s desire; He blesses the greedy and renounces the Lord. The wicked in his pride does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts.” These verses describe the person whose desires rule on the throne of his own heart. The writer continues in the next 6 verses to describe this wicked man as he appears to prosper and enjoy the temporary fulfillment of his own desires.

It’s interesting to me how the longer this person pursues His own desires, the more his description sounds like Satan, himself. Phrases like: ‘God’s judgements are out of his sight, and he sneers at all his enemies’; he declares in his heart, “I shall not be moved, nor face adversity;” his mouth is full of cursing and deceit, and oppression; under his tongue is trouble and sin; he lies in wait as a lion in his den. These descriptions create a picture of the decline of a person who continually pursues his own desires to his own destruction. Like Satan, he thinks God has forgotten the offensiveness of his rebellion and he thinks he is winning the war against God’s holiness, but he is not! Although he is unaware in the moment, he is the recipient of God’s mercy.

“The Lord is King forever and ever! The Lord hears the desires of the afflicted; He strengthens their heart; He hears and does justice for the fatherless and oppressed,” the rest of the chapter tells us. What wonderful truths and victorious language these verses use to describe God.

The struggle for us in the present is that because God’s character is both just and merciful, His followers often must wait for these things to be true according to God’s prescribed time. Why do we have to wait? We wait while His mercy is extended to those who have made their own desires the king of their heart. We wait for them to grow weary of Satan’s lies and emptiness. We wait for them to dethrone those desires and put God in His rightful place forever: on the throne of our hearts!