Have you ever heard anyone teach that God speaks through your desires? Well, we believe that can be true! Before you decide to burn us at the stake for heresy, read this excerpt from our devotional entitled Hearing God: 31 Daily Devotions That Tune You in to God’s Frequency. We believe this daily devotion will give you confidence that when you are in relationship with God, you can trust Him to lead you through your desires!
Day 15
Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
— Psalm 37:4
Sometimes the Lord can speak to you through your own desires. If you are in a solid relationship with the Lord, spending time with Him regularly and practicing hearing His voice, He will use your own desires to lead you. This verse doesn’t mean that God will give you everything your flesh wants. Instead, the Lord will place the desires He has for you within your heart so you will want the same things.
When we are delighting in the Lord, our desires will mirror His own. We won’t want to sin; we will want to do what pleases Him. When a fork in the road appears, our heart will not be to do what makes our flesh happy, but we will take the path that brings us true joy, which will often line up with His will.
Before the Lord spoke to us to launch into our own ministry, we had no desire to do so! We were happy just to serve in another man’s ministry and do what we could to support it. However, when the Lord spoke to us to start Terradez Ministries, our desires changed! We began to want to launch our own ministry, even though we hadn’t before.
Matching Desires
While we were delighting ourselves in the Lord, we were exactly where He wanted us to be, working for someone else. But when He wanted us to move into a new arena of ministry, He changed our desires to match His own!
The word “delight” in this verse means to be soft or pliable. Delighting yourself in the Lord means to have a soft heart toward Him. Being pliable means you are surrendered to Him, allowing Him to change you. It doesn’t mean doing everything perfectly.
However, no matter what, God is always there, eagerly anticipating time with you. Make communicating with Him part of your everyday life, and you will be able to trust the desires of your heart.
In Addition
A daily devotional doesn’t have a lot of extra space to go into great detail, but we wanted to clarify a little bit here in this teaching article: God will not give you sinful desires!
We know intuitively, through the Spirit of God within us, when our desires are godly and when they are sin. When we desire to lie to avoid trouble, to steal when we feel we don’t have enough, or to act hatefully toward someone else, we know in our hearts these impulses are not from the Lord. Therefore, please don’t use what we are teaching you hear to excuse sinful behavior.
God has given us grace, which is the power of God within us to live righteously. We don’t have to submit to ungodly desires!
Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name…
— Romans 1:5 NKJV, emphasis added
Grace is given for our obedience! We have been given the power of God within us to say, “No,” when the desire to sin rears it’s ugly head. It isn’t by our own might, or our own willpower: it is by the Spirit of God! (Zechariah 4:6).
That’s why I work and struggle so hard, depending on Christ’s mighty power that works within me.
— Colossians 1:29 NLT
Paul learned to depend on the mighty power of Jesus working on the inside of him, and so can you. When faced with temptations—the desires—to sin, look to Jesus! Tap into the grace He has given you and you will discover the power to resist rising up from the inside. You can deny sinful desires and be led by godly desires!
Hearing God Devotional
Hearing God’s voice clearly is a vital part of our walk with God. We are God’s children and He wants to have an intimate relationship with us. If we want to know God intimately, we must be able to recognize when He is speaking to us! This 31-day devotional will teach you how to hear and follow God’s voice. Now is the time to fine-tune your receiver to hear clearly what God is saying to you!