What's the Desire of Your Heart?

What do you want in life? Are your goals realistic? What if you never got that thing? Would your life have been a waste? For instance, when I was young I wanted to be rich, and I've heard the same thing from my kids at times, namely a desire to be a millionaire. Now, for me, it wasn't necessarily that I wanted money, but there were things that I wanted that I couldn't get because I didn't have enough money. So, therefore, I wanted to be able to buy whatever my heart desired.

For others, their heart desire might be that someone would love them or that they would have a relationship with their dream man or woman. Another person's heart desire might be to be famous, to have thousands or even millions of likes on their Instagram post or Tiktok video. Heck, I can understand that, because even in writing articles or blog posts, I wonder how many people I can reach.

What I've realized as I've lived a little bit of life now is that, money, things, people, fame, pleasure, etc., are only temporarily satisfying. They break, get lost, go away, get forgotten in history, and/or die. They don't, they cannot, really fill my heart and keep me satisfied.

So this morning as I was reading in the book of Psalms 37:4, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart," I was contemplating how the first part of the verse connects to the second part of the verse. God can give us the desires of our heart, but he doesn't promise to give us just anything that we might want. Rather, He will give us himself if we delight in Him. When He becomes the desire of our heart, He gives us Himself. 

But is God worth it? Can He really satisfy our hearts and keep us satisfied? In the Psalm right before this, it says, "How priceless is your unfailing love. Both high and lower among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house. You give them drink from your river of delights, for with you is the fountain of life. In your light we see light" (Psalm 36:7-9). 

But how can we know that this is true? I mean, sure, God is saying this about Himself, but is he really telling us the truth? In this case, there really is only one way to find out. As Psalm 34;8 says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him."  Honestly, you can go through the process of trying everything out, like the teacher in the book of Ecclesiastes did, to see if those other things will satisfy you, but I would recommend starting with the one true God, who is eternal and wants relationship with us. 

We know this because he reaches out to us in the person of Jesus Christ who came to repair a broken relationship so that we could delight in the Lord. We could experience His love. He actually gives us a new heart and helps us understand how to delight in the Lord so that the desire of our heart, the eternal desire, the hole in our heart can be filled. 

What is eternal life?

 

I have to admit that the idea for this article was inspired by Pastor Cory Martin's sermon on John 17:1-5 last week. He discussed the concept of eternal life and how we often perceive it in terms of infinite time. However, John 17:3 states, "And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." From this, we learn that eternal life is not simply about existing forever, but rather about being in an eternal relationship with the true God through the work of His Son, Jesus.

The truth we all intuitively know is that life is not merely about going through the motions each day, but about living with purpose, love, and in connection with others. When our lives are filled with suffering, loneliness, depression, and pain, we often contemplate ending our existence because we recognize that essential elements of life are missing. We experience the brokenness in our lives and understand that a part of us has succumbed to a little bit of death.

What Jesus expresses in His prayer to the Father is that true life is not found in simply finding temporary meaning and significance in worldly things or relationships. Instead, it is found in a relationship with the eternal God. When we truly know Him because we have been saved by Jesus, we discover the true meaning of life, experience boundless love, and have a relationship with someone who is always with us. This means that eternal life does not commence when we physically die in this world but rather when we die to ourselves and accept Jesus as our Savior. Paul articulates this in Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."

Moreover, eternal life should not be understood as simply existing forever in a place that might eventually become dull or tiresome. Instead, eternal life means living eternally with God. This is the same creative God who fashioned the entire universe and who will forever be infinitely creative. The goodness we experience in this world and universe is an expression of His own goodness and will continue to exist in the next life. Life with Him will be infinitely good and infinitely captivating.

If you currently know God through the work of His Son and are deepening your relationship with Him, you should be growing more and more excited about spending eternity with God. During the same service that Cory spoke about, an 80-year-old man shared his testimony of how he came to know Jesus. Afterwards, we watched a video featuring a song about spending eternity with Jesus. It is my hope, at 52, that I will be even more excited about knowing Jesus at 80 or 90, so that I will be fully prepared to meet Him face to face. I hope you, too, are excited about eternity with Jesus.

Center of History

This time of year, we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus. His life has had more impact on the world than any other man, and in the western world, we actually divide history by the life of Jesus. Before Christ, we could not fully understand how God was going to redeem the world. After the cross and resurrection, we can see that God's plan was to redeem a people by saving us from our sin.

The cross was not God's back up plan. In fact, when God created the world, he knew how history would unfold and planned to send His son to be the redeemer. Jesus as a member of the Trinity planned from the very moment He created to come and take on human form and die for us. The cross, while done for us, is not primarily about us. At the cross, Jesus gives ultimate glory to the Father by displaying the love and goodness of God through sacrificing Himself for those who rejected Him. Therefore, we can rightly say that no matter the number of years went by before or continue after the cross, it will still be the center of history

Since the work done by Jesus on the cross and His resurrection is the center of the history of the world, it should be the center of our lives. Is it? Does the gospel dominate your life?

How often do you think about Jesus and His work for you? How often does the gospel influence your decisions at work or in the home? How often do you spend time with your Savior in the Word or in prayer? Can you say you are intentional daily? When tempted to cheat on your taxes (yes this time of year too!), are you walking close enough with the Holy Spirit to be want to do the righteous thing even though you could probably get away with a little fudge here and there? Is Jesus love on your lips when you get home after a long day and see your wife, husband, or kids? In decision, attitudes, and actions throughout our daily lives, we need Jesus to be the center.

Now I know that none of us are perfect yet, because Jesus would not have had to die for perfect people, but the more the gospel becomes the center of our lives, the more like Jesus we will become. During this Easter season, I want to encourage you to think about how to make Jesus the center not just of your history, but of your everyday.