How To Undeceive A Desire James 1:15-17 Series

Quiet Desire

So between the world’s preaching, and our dabbling, we deceive our desires. And there are two kinds of deceived desires – quiet ones and loud ones. The quiet ones fly under the radar. Deep down inside that desire is there, it is deceived, and it is ready to be activated. But until something activates it, you hardly even know it’s there. You might think you are doing great – right up until that moment when a suitable temptation comes along, and then poof – it goes off like gunpowder and you’re thinking, “Where did that come from?”

Boiling Desire

The other kind of deceived desire is the boiling kind. The kind Paul calls passionate desire (1 Thes.4:5), or burning desire (1 Cor.7:9, Ro.1:27). The more a deceived desire gets fed, the bigger the fire gets until you can finally get to the point where you are like Amnon in 2 Samuel 13:2, whose desire for Tamar was so extreme that it made him physically ill when he saw that he couldn’t have her. The same thing happened to Ahab in 1 Kings 21:4 because of his desire for a vineyard. And to Haman in Esther 5 because of his desire for revenge. Any sinful desire, if it is fed enough, can come to a boil.

Jeremiah 5:8 They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for another man’s wife.

They have no more command of themselves than an animal in heat. They are like the false teachers in 2 Peter 2:14 – with eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning. Take out the word adultery and replace it with whatever craving dominates your desires. Love of money, materialism, love of comfort, desire for affirmation of certain people, love of food (your god is your stomach), love of power – whichever particular desire has become deceived to the point of running after sin, if that desire gets fed enough it can go from being dry kindling to a raging forest fire. Eyes full of that sin means your heart is looking for it every day. And it does not even require that an opportunity to commit that sin be put in front of you. When your eyes are full of that sin you go searching for opportunities.

Desire Coup

And whether it is quiet, smoldering desire that never even shows itself until just the right temptation arises, or it is raging, boiling, driving lust for some sin, either way, the reason it is happening is that desire has somehow made its way onto the throne of your heart. Your heart is the control center of your life, and so whatever is in control of your heart is in control of you. So if you allow a desire to become deceived – get ready to become enslaved by that desire, because it will take over the control center of your life – because a desire will do whatever it takes to obtain what it thinks will bring it life and good days. Titus 3:3 describes it as being deceived and enslaved by all kinds of desires and pleasures. First it deceives you, then it enslaves you. It tricks you into thinking some sin is the way to find life and good days, and that desire then starts giving you orders. It treats you like a slave, ordering you to run after that sin. So God commands us in Romans 6:12 do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires. When you became a Christian you were freed from sin. We are free, but when we allow a desire to become deceived we voluntarily re-enslave ourselves to sin.