What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:1-6 (NIV)
We can often place restrictions on our bodies or limit access to our Deliah’s but in the end, the fervent desires of our hearts will rise up and conquer. Every.time. We often find our “wants” steering and controlling us – getting us nowhere fast. Moderation here can fail us. What is needed is a passionate, fiery hot love for what is unmingled good and pure to replace what is not. We need a greater love for the Lord Jesus than the overwhelmingly tempting things we may have placed on the throne of our lives. It does us well to remember that He will not share His rightful throne of our hearts with anything or anyone. What we need is, as Scottish Pastor Thomas Chalmers once wrote, is “An expulsive power of a new affection”. This happens when we change what we treasure and replace it with something that we treasure more. And for the believer, that is always to be the Lord Jesus. He is to be our Number One and our top priority.
What is it that we treasure most? What is pleasing to our minds, motivating to our wills and seeking – but failing – to fully satisfy our hearts? One knows in one’s heart. And if you question this look at where your time and money go. Whatever the treasure is - our strongest loves, affections and feelings - are placed in our hearts for these objects. And our affections and desires will rise up and conquer. What we love the most is right there in our hearts – sitting smack on the throne of our lives - pulling at us and directing our actions. Sampson is a good case in point. These things are our “treasures” as Jesus calls them and we must be careful what we treasure. And as Chalmers tells us, the only way to dislodge a wrong treasure from our hearts is for it to be pushed out and replaced by a new and stronger one.
To enjoy God and to glorify Him through our actions is the highest calling of mankind. And when the Living Water overflows our cups we are no longer wanting – fully satisfied. And those satisfied with Jesus are the most winsome and wooing people to be around.
Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-- who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Psalms 103:1-5 (NIV)