Month: November 2017

We watched the first Thor movie the other day.  There’s a mild romance that develops between Thor, the demigod, and Jane, the scientist.  As he heads off to fight the enemy that’s destroying the town, Jane declares her feelings for Thor with a kiss. After that, it’s not so easy for him to walk away.  He needs to go save the world, but his desire to stay with Jane is strong.  This is what we think of when we talk about desire.

When our desire is for things of this world, it can lead us to do all kinds of shameful things. “All of us used to live that way, following the passions and desires of our evil nature” (Ephesians 2:3).  “These evil desires lead to evil actions, and evil actions lead to death” (James 1:15).  Evil action, sin, doesn’t necessarily lead to a quick physical death.  It’s a poisoned arrow.  It’s the serpent’s venom.  At the first strike, death enters our veins (1 Corinthians 15:56).  Our hearts are poisoned by our own longing for evil things.  What is temptation but the enticement of desire?

The Bible records the details of two temptations, Eve in the Garden (Genesis 3:1-6), and Jesus in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11).  Eve was in a place of abundance, fullness, and life. Jesus was hungry in an empty, barren wasteland. The apple looked good to Eve.  I’m sure bread sounded good to Jesus.  So much hinges on what happened next.  Eve plucked the fruit and severed her lifeline to God. Death came into the world as a result of her desire. Jesus chose hunger.  He said there’s something even better than bread.  He wanted the things of God more than the things of the world.  He reclaimed desire.

God knows that desire is powerful.  He knows we orient our lives, our hearts, towards the object of our desires.  That’s why when God rescues us, He says “I will give you a new heart with new and right desires, and I will put a new spirit in you” (Ezekiel 36:25).

God is after our hearts, the source and essence of life.  To live in covenant relationship with Him, we need different motivations, a new orientation, a new direction.  We need new and right desires.  Paul writes, “God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him” (Philippians 2:13). Desire leads to power.

We need new desires so evil temptations are no temptation at all.  So that what we want is only the good fruit of a Spirit-filled life, of a transformed heart.  Passionate devoted affection for God is the seed that produces the fruits of obedience, worship, honor, and reverence.  When our desire is for God, it leads us to Him – “O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you!” (Psalm 63:1)

We don’t need to get rid of desire.  We just need to want the right things.  Our desires were held captive by sin.  When Christ broke the chains of our bondage to sin, He freed us from death.  He set free our desire.  We are free to choose Him as the orientation and direction – the desire – of our hearts.  We reclaim desire so that we can experience longing and passion and intimacy with the Lover of our souls.  

My 8th grade daughter was cozily snuggled on the couch under a blanket, lost in a book.  It was the kind of moment where she was perfectly content with what she was doing right where she was – she could have stayed that way all day.  And then I said it.  “The dishwasher needs to be emptied.” I’m not going to pretend that what happened next happens every day, but on this particular day, she put down the book and threw off the blanket and got up to empty the dishwasher.

What got my middle schooler off the couch that day? Love. Her love for me matters to her.  It causes her to do things.  And that day it put her into motion.

The same is true of God.  You matter to Him.  You have an effect on Him. You move Him. Why?  For the same reason – because He loves you.  His love is the primary cause that set all creation into motion – it was all “as a result of his loving us first” (1 John 4:19).

If faith can move mountains, what can love move?  It moved the King of heaven from His throne and brought Him to a barn in the middle of nowhere.  It moved Him from a quiet life as a carpenter’s son in Nazareth to the hills of Galilee.  It moved Him from an exalted procession on Palm Sunday to torture and mockery on Golgotha.  Love held Him to the Cross until the very end.

But that’s not all.  Love is also what moved Him from Good Friday to Easter morning.  Love is what moved heaven and earth and stormed the gates of hell to rescue you, and it’s what moves you from the grave to your own resurrection.

We sometimes have the sense that God’s sitting on a throne looking down on us and awarding or subtracting points as we go throughout the day.  Or maybe we believe that He created the world, and hasn’t been involved much since.  We live as though He pretty much leaves the realities of everyday life up to us to manage as best we can.  He’s distant, remote, aloof.

That is not the God of the Bible.

Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God.  He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form.  Philippians 2:6-7

The whole of the Bible is the story of God’s passionate pursuit of a relationship with us. And not just any relationship, but a relationship of intimacy.  A father and his beloved children.  A husband and wife.  These aren’t temporary relationships but eternal, enduring connections.

You will call me ‘my husband’ instead of ‘my master’… I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion.  I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as Lord. Hosea 2:14-20

You will finally know me as Lord. This is the name God spoke to Moses from the burning bush – “I am the one who always is” (Exodus 3:14).  You will finally know me for who I am.  And if you know who I am, you will know that I love you, that I’ve always loved you, that I can’t ever stop loving you. I will never leave you or forsake you because you’re the apple of my eye.

There’s a reason the Crucifixion is also called the Passion.  What else so clearly reveals the unrestrained, nothing-held-back love of God?  Our God is a living God.  He isn’t inaccessible, unknown, or unresponsive. We sanitize His passion at our peril.  God longs to be near us.  So He obliterated everything that stood in the way of being together forever.  It’s the passionate rescue of His beloved.