February 26
“Therefore having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” 2 Corinthians 7:1
Yesterday we discussed examining the deepest desires of our hearts with the intent of discovering and eliminating any love of evil. We talked about thinking through our wildest fantasies and deepest longings to see if there is any evil in the things that get us excited and energized. We discussed the need to repent of these evil desires and ask God to completely remove them from our hearts.
Do you find that your deepest fantasies involve adulterous or immoral relationships? Do you find that what you truly wish for is to get even with someone or for a particular person in your life to be gone or even dead (murder)? Do you desire to be divorced or not married to your current spouse? Do you desire revenge or punishment on an enemy? Do you desire deep in your heart to have great wealth or recognition or power (covetousness and pride)? These and things like these clearly indicate a presence of sin in our hearts, and they must be removed through repentance, prayer, and replacing them with spiritual desires taught to us in the scriptures.
I suspect that in addition to finding a love of things that are clearly evil in our hearts, we also will find things that don’t appear to be evil but perhaps are a great hindrance to our being useful to God – things that in reality are sinful but not so obviously so. One example of such a desire might be a life of comfort and ease, a life where we didn’t have to work or put forth much of an effort to do anything. Another example might be that deep down we desire no difficulties or times of testing, just a life of everything working out right and being blessed by God. Another thing we may deeply desire is an intimate, loving relationship with a wife or a husband and a great, picture book family with obedient, God-fearing children.
These desires and longings may not be overtly sinful, but they may not be God’s will for us, and longing for them can be a stumbling block that trips us up and causes us grief and pain today because we are yearning for what we aren’t experiencing. We are missing where God wants to lead us because our hearts are full of desire for things that are good in this life but not essential for the next. We end up failing and sinning because we desire things on this earth more that the things above, more than holiness or the filling of the Spirit or being used by the Lord to further His kingdom. Think of it from this perspective: what if Jesus yearned for the things that you yearn for? What if He desired a warm, loving wife and lots of children instead of doing God’s will above all else? What if He had succumbed to Satan’s offer of all the kingdoms of this world? If it would have been great sin for Jesus to have succumbed to these earthly desires, what makes us think that we can allow these temporal desires to exist as the deepest longings of our hearts and not be negatively affected by them?
In my mind, I have a place where I put these desires that are good but maybe not the Lord’s will for me, at least not now. I have a “bag” or “box” in my mind that the Lord keeps for me. Whenever an evil desire comes to mind, I am training my mind to immediately reject it and ask the Lord to take away any desire for it. But when an good desire comes to mind, a blessing that I long for but am not experiencing, I put it in the “bag” and ask the Lord to remember it and give it to me sometime in the future if it is His will. But I also ask for His contentment and ability to do without it in the meantime.
Therefore, we need to ask the Lord to remove from us not only every desire in our heart that is overtly evil but also those that are good but temporal, those that appeal to the flesh in its desire for comfort and ease and love but which are apparently not His will for us at this time, if ever. Being aware of these desires, examining our hearts and being conscious of what our heart has become attached to, is a key first step in understanding what drives us and our behaviors. This is necessary if we are to successfully “cleanse ourselves of all defilements of flesh and spirit.”