All the desires of your heart

January 22, 2008

All the Desires of Your Heart:

Ps. 37:4 Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

Desires - From H7592; a request:—desire, petition. (H7592) A primitive root; to inquire; by implication to request; by extension to demand:—ask (counsel, on), beg, borrow, lay to charge, consult, demand, desire, X earnestly, enquire, + greet, obtain leave, lend, pray, request, require, + salute, X straitly, X surely, wish.

Heart - A form of H3824; the heart; also used (figuratively) very widely for the feelings, the will and even the intellect; likewise for the centre of anything:

Alright, I'm going to look at a lot of verses, although not every reference to desire/desires by any means! I will begin with negative references to desires.

Negative References:

Ps. 10:3 For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD abhorreth.

Here is a great reference to check yourself and see if all you care about is stuff. Is it your only goal? Are you covetous? Focused on having what other people have or better than them? Or perhaps you just go around telling everyone about how much God has blessed you (better than he's blessed them, of course!). That is a wicked attitude in connection with desires.

Mark 9:35 And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.

On the same note, if all we are desiring is to be above everyone, greater than everyone, or the best… then Jesus says we are as good as last in his Kingdom order. Things don't work that way. It all comes down to motive. I don't believe he is saying here that we cannot desire things to better ourselves, but it is about why… the heart reasons.

Ecc. 6:9 Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire: this is also vanity and vexation of spirit.

Just sometimes all those dreams are worthless, because what you have now is just fine! Weigh it and determine if those goals and dreams are deserving of your desire.

Then we have Mark 10:35-40

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come unto him, saying, Master, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire.

And he said unto them, What would ye that I should do for you?

They said unto him, Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory.

But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?

And they said unto him, We can. And Jesus said unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized:

But to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared.

Now he doesn't actually tell them that they will not sit on his right or left hand, but clearly they asked something that they cannot have an immediate answer to. Sometimes our desires are not desires that can be answered.

Positive references to desire:

Prov. 11:23 The desire of the righteous is only good: but the expectation of the wicked is wrath.

Prov. 13:12 Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.

Prov. 13:19 The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul: but it is abomination to fools to depart from evil.

Prov. 18:1 Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.

Prov. 19:22 The desire of a man is his kindness: and a poor man is better than a liar.

I guess these are pretty self explanatory, but basically, righteous people desire good things (so makes sense that God would give them their desires!), desires fulfilled make our life abundant (tree of life - isn't that the kind of life we are supposed to have?), accomplished desire is actually contrasted with the foolish man, desires lead a man to seek wisdom, and it is desire that is a source of kindness.

Now here are some things that men in the Bible have desired -

David desired to live his whole life over again in surrender to God even if he didn't have an everlasting covenant, and he desired the Lord above all else:

II Sam. 23:5 Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow.

Ps. 73:25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.

Judah said that they sought the Lord with their whole desire:

II Chron 15:15 And all Judah rejoiced at the oath: for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found of them: and the LORD gave them rest round about.

Nehemiah desired to fear the name of the Lord:

Neh. 1:11 O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name: and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was the king's cupbearer.

Job desired to reason with God and to have an answer from God.

Job 13:3 Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.

Job. 31:35 Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book.

Isaiah says that the land of Judah will one day sing that their desire is the name of the LORD.

Is. 26:8 Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.

Paul's desire was that Israel would be saved, that fruit would abound to his fellow Christians at Philippi, and that the church of Colossi would be filled with all the knowledge of his will.

Rom 10:1 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.

Phil 4:17 Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account.

Col. 1:9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

The Corinthian Church had great desire to get right from sin.

2 Cor 7:11 For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.

Good things to desire:

I Cor. 14:1 Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy.

I Tim 3:1 This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

I Pet. 2:2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:

Well, we are pretty much commanded to desire spiritual gifts and the Word of God… and for all you men out there it's a good thing to desire the office of a bishop!

The Lord's Desire:

Song. 7:10 I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me.

It doesn't get much better than that! Seeing's as my Jesus' desire is toward's me… His beloved!!... Of course he wants to give me my heart's desire. That's what a bridegroom does.

Sometimes gaining the desires of our heart seems to hinge on something:

Ps. 10:17 LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear:

Ps. 145:19 He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them.

Prov. 10:24 The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted.

Ps. 37:4 Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

So we see that the Lord hears/grants the desires of the humble and the righteous, those that fear him, and those who delight in him. But does this exclude all others from receiving their desires? Who is righteous? As Christians we all have the righteousness of God, so we are all included in that verse… I suppose the others focus more on Christian who like David make God their one thing. These verses do not say what the desires are that will be answered, nor does it say that because we delight in him our desires will be his, although I believe that that often happens as we draw closer and closer to him.

Gaining our desires with no apparent strings attatched:

Ps. 21:2 Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah.

Ps. 78:29 So they did eat, and were well filled: for he gave them their own desire;

Ps. 145:16 Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.

Mark 11:24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

Here we see God granting desires without it saying why. The first one was David, so we could conclude that he was righteous, humble, feared God or delighted in Him, etc… so of course he got what he wanted, but it doesn't say that's why… but just in case that's what we decide it means lets look at the others. Psalm 78 is a song of Asaph about the children of Israel… and that clearly had nothing to do with them! In fact in verse 21 you find that God had just been pretty mad at them, and if you know the story, the only reason he sent them the quail in verse 29 was because they were whining… again! So, not a good example of someone being humble, fearing God, or doing something to get a desire granted, and yet God gives! Psalm 145 we see that God satisfies the desire of every living thing. That would include us. He satisfies my mouth with good things! (Psalm 103:5) And now my personal favorite in Mark, if you believe you SHALL have it! That's what it says.

Now, we have seen that desire can be good and bad, but it's mostly a good thing in Scripture. It is primarily spiritual in focus, but when it comes to requesting things there is no limit to what we desire. God never says "You may only desire spiritual things," In fact, on the contrary, we see proof that it could be for material things with the last three verses I quoted. But we should remember that we need to guard our desires from covetousness and boastfulness as we seek to be more like Christ.