Does Our Desire Match Up With The Desire Of The Holy Spirit?
Good Morning Friends,
If you are a Christian then God has placed in you an inward drive to express His love through Christian service for the lives of others. Sometimes it is an individual effort, for God is so personal, but hopefully it is also a mutual one. The problem is that we are human and have all sorts of other drives and desires as well. Reconciling the individual with the collective takes patience and frankly is probably only possible with the power and love of the Holy Spirit. Thankfully the Holy Spirit can create the change it desires for all of us. Here God’s plan of belief, action and results is better than my plan or for that matter, your plan to deal with the challenges of life. We are blessed that God has a holistic plan for us to be in fellowship together, encouraging each other in the Spirit. It is to be our combined plan ultimately. It all comes down to this: Does Our Desire Match Up With The Desire Of The Holy Spirit?
Scripture: All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
1 Corinthians 12:11 (NRSV)
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
Romans 12: 3-8 (NRSV)
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4 (NRSV)
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.
Galatians 5:13-26 (NRSV)
Message: We can have desires of the heart. We can have desires of the flesh. We can have desires for gifts. We can desire wisdom. We can desire power. But the greatest desire we can have is to know God. And the greatest gift is that God knows us. For some the search is as a climb up a ladder and for others a walk on a path. It of course can be both, but regardless of how you perceive it, one has to have the unction to function in a spiritual growth mode. We have to choose to accept the offer. And my experience is that God has graced us… grafted us and gifted us to help each other to grow in love, maturing in the faith, experiencing the motives, ministries and manifestations of His will for us in our lives. I am not referring to talents that we develop but our natural God given gifts that we begin to use in concert with the gifts of others to serve God’s purpose for His Kingdom. Indeed, no group, congregation or church will be as strong, healthy and productive as we could be, what Jesus prayed it should be, what the Holy Spirit gifted and empowered it to be until we use and understand the spiritual gifts we have been given…doing together that which we could not hope to accomplish alone. It comes down to our desire to accomplish something together…whether it is in a discipleship relationship, in a church, organization or a gathering of believers moved by the Spirit to serve God together. My experience is that life, especially in the spiritual sense, is best lived as a pilgrim on the path in fellowship with others and not so much as one climbing a ladder in a world designed to isolate us. So search your desires and the desires of others and then always choose to seek to serve God’s desire that we glorify what is Holy.
Pray that we do not only know God but that God knows us and is in fellowship with us. Pray recognize that we all have a role to play in that relationship. Pray we value relationships. Pray that if we are climbing a ladder we do not step on each other’s fingers. Pray that we discover that we belong to one body, intimately connected, intimately related, and bound in the love of Jesus Christ. Pray that we be on a spiritual journey, helping each other stay on the path…growing together. Pray therefore that we embrace the sympathetic consciousness of others, experiencing their distress with a desire to alleviate it. Pray that we desire to do God’s will. Pray that we have a desire to invest ourselves in the lives of others so that we might all experience the joy of Him being magnified in us for His purposes… realizing we have been blessed to use the gifts God has given us to be a blessing to others. Pray that on the journey, in all the seasons of our lives, the desires of our hearts will turn to the love of God. Pray that we desire to tell the good news about peace. Pray our desires are for God and with God as an act of love. Pray God be involved in our emotions and experiences revealing the divine nature and wonder of it all. Pray we delight in the Lord’s comfort and conviction. Pray we each be loved into perfection.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 