Blessed are those who
hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6
In nature it is easy to watch the activity carried on by desire.
The very perpetuation of the various species is guaranteed by the presence of
desire, and each individual member of each species is sustained and nourished
by the natural operation of desire. Every normal creature desires a mate, and
so the perpetuation of life is achieved. Every creature desires food, and the
life of each is supported. Thus desire is the servant of the God of nature and
waits on His will.
In the moral world things are not otherwise. Right desires tend
toward life and evil ones toward death. That in essence is the scriptural
teaching on this subject. Whatever a man wants badly and persistently enough
will determine the man's character. In the Pauline epistles the gravitational pull
of the heart in one direction or another is called the "mind." In the
eighth chapter of Romans, for instance, when Paul refers to the
"mind" he is referring to the sum of our dominant desires. The mere
intellect is not the mind: the mind is intellect plus an emotional tug strong
enough to determine action.
By this definition it is easy to understand the words of Romans
8:5-7, "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh;
but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally
minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the
carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be," When our dominant desires are bad the whole life
is bad as a consequence; when the desires are good the life comes up to the
level of our desires, provided that we have within us the enabling Spirit.
At the root of all true spiritual growth is a set of right and
sanctified desires. The whole Bible teaches that we can have whatever we want
badly enough if, it hardly need be said, our desire is according to the will of
God. The desire after God and holiness is back of all real spirituality, and
when that desire becomes dominant in the life nothing can prevent us from
having what we want. The longing cry of the God-hungry soul can be expressed in
the five words of the song, "Oh, to be like Thee!" While this longing
persists there will be steady growth in grace and a constant progress toward
Christlike-ness.
Unsanctified desire will stop the growth of any Christian life.
Wrong desire perverts the moral judgment so that we are unable to appraise the
desired object at its real value. However we try, still a thing looks morally
better because we want it. For that reason our heart is often our worst
counselor, for if it is filled with desire it may give us bad advice, pleading
the purity of something that is in itself anything but pure.
As Christians our only safety lies in complete honesty. We must
surrender our hearts to God so that we have no unholy desires, then let the
Scriptures pronounce their judgment on a contemplated course. If the Scriptures
condemn an object, we must accept that judgment and conform to it, no matter
how we may for the moment feel about it.
To want a thing, or feel that we want it, and then to turn from
it because we see that it is contrary to the will of God is to win a great
battle on a field larger than Gettysburg or Bunker Hill. To bring our desires
to the cross and allow them to be nailed there with Christ is a good and a
beautiful thing. To be tempted and yet to glorify God in the midst of it is to
honor Him where it counts. This is more pleasing to God than any amount of
sheltered and untempted piety could ever be. To fight and to win in the name of
Christ is always better than to have known no conflict.
God is always glorified when He wins a moral victory over us,
and we are always benefited, immeasurably and gloriously benefited. The glory
of God and the everlasting welfare of His people are always bound up together.
The blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse not only actual sins which have been
committed, but the very inward desires so that we will not want to sin.
Purified desires will tend toward righteousness by a kind of gentle moral
gravitation. Then it can be said that we are "spiritually minded." A
blessed state indeed, and blessed are they that reach it.
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