Pray.
Father, open our eyes to the truth of who You are. Help us today to understand what our true desire must be.
Open my eyes so that we may see Your Word. Open our ears to hear, our minds to understand, and open our hearts so that we may receive Your Word today.
Amen.
One word that is often overlooked or misused during the Christmas season is the word “desire.”
Webster’s dictionary defines desire as to wish for something or to long for or to crave. It comes from a Latin word that means “heavenly body.”
Children have a desire for new toys.
Teens have a desire for new clothes.
Ladies have a desire for bling.
Men have a desire for electronics.
If you don’t believe me watch some television commercials, they are designed to catch the attention of your desire.
Eventually the new toys break.
The new clothes don’t fit or go out of style.
The bling looses its shine.
And the technology of the electronics is outdated a week after you get it.
So we begin to desire those things again.
We need more new toys, more new clothes, more bling, and more electronics.
Is our desire what it should be?
There is no better place to understand what our desire should be during this time of the year and every time of the year than in the Word of God.
Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. You are in church and in this church we talk about the Bible every Sunday and ever Wednesday evening.
We are going to look at three Old Testament passages today that will help us bring our desire into its correct focus.
The first is in Daniel 2:17-23, paying very close attention to verse 18.
Let me set this up for you before we read it from the King James Version.
Daniel and his friends had been captured and taken to Babylon. During this time God gave them knowledge and understand and wisdom. And during this time these young men found the favor of the king who had captured them.
One night the king, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that deeply
The catch about interpreting the dream was that if you could not tell the king what the dream was and what the interpretation was then all the wise men would be killed.
Just a little pressure.
That is where we pick up our story.
17Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions: 18That they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. 19Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. 20Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: 21And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: 22He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. 23I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king’s matter.
Daniel 2:17-23
Did you catch verse 18?
The Amplified translates it, So that they would desire and request mercy of the God of heaven… Daniel 2:18 AMP.
In this verse we see one of the major problems in the world today. Today people do not have any desire for the God of heaven.
Oh that the church would desire and request mercy of the God of heaven!
We have a God who loves us so much that He sent from heaven His one and only Son, the greatest present mankind has ever known, to redeem our relationship with Him.
He has given us every good thing. He has provided for our every need. He has put the enemy under our feet. He has healed every disease. He has given us wisdom and power.
And yet people today fail to make God the main object of their desire.
When Daniel and his friends made God their main desire God then provided their needs.
What did they need? They needed a revelation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. God gave it to them. Look at verse 23.
23I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king’s matter.
When we make God the main object of our desire we find His wisdom, His might, His solution, His will, His provision, His power, His protection, His healing, His Holy Spirit; we find everything we need when we make God the main object of our desire.
He releases these things in us.
Daniel, Shadrac, Meshac, and Abednego desired God and God protected them from death time and time again and lifted them up to places of honor in a far away country.
Their desire was consumed with God.
They desired to follow Him and to follow His Word. These young men put their trust in the Lord, the leaned on Him forever.
Isaiah talks about such desire in Isaiah 26:1-9
In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: we have a strong city; the Lord sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks. Open the gates, that the righteous nation which keeps her faith and her troth with God may enter it.
You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You and hopes confidently in You.
So trust in the Lord, (commit yourself to Him, lean on Him, hope confidently in Him) forever: for the Lord God is an everlasting Rock. For He has brought down the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city: He lays it low, lays it low to the ground; He brings it even to the dust. The foot has trampled down even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.
The way of the righteous is level and straight; You, O Lord, Who are up right, direct aright and make level the path of the just and righteous. Yes, in the path of Your judgments, O Lord, we wait expectantly for You; our heartfelt desire is for Your name and for the remembrance of You.
My soul yearns for You [O Lord] in the night, yes, my spirit within me seek You earnestly; for when Your judgments are in the earth will the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.” Isaiah 26:1-9 AMP.
Even though the walls come crashing to the ground from time to time, God promises perfect peace to those whose main desire is God the Father.
God always provides victory for the people who make God the main object of their desire. Daniel and his three friends prove that. Faced with death three times God saved them because He was the main object of their desire.
They were obedient to God’s Law, they sought Him in times of trouble, they praised Him at all times, they longed for Him, they trusted Him in all things.
What do you do when the walls of life come crashing down on you? Do you go running for cover or do you go running to the object of your desire? If the object of your desire is God then you are running the right way.
Our greatest desire must be for God. We must desire that His name be glorified above all other names.
Matthew Henry states, “Our desires towards God must be inward, fervent, and sincere. With our soul we must desire him, with our soul we must pant after him and with our spirits within us, with the innermost thought and the closest application of mind, we must seek him.”
Is your desire what it should be this Christmas?
During the days of the prophet Haggai, some 500 years before the birth of Christ, as the people of God were building the new temple the prophet spoke about the desire of mankind coming to the earth.
In the book of Haggai we read about the former glory of God, that which was present when the Temple of Solomon was built. But in the Scripture I am about to read we learn about the object of our desire.
He was about to come.
This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all the nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. “The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty. Haggai 2:6-9
In this Messianic prophecy Haggai reveals that the Messiah would soon be coming to the world. The object of desire that causes the former glory of God to pale in comparison was coming to the earth.
It was the desire of the nations that caused the Magi of the east to follow the star to Bethlehem.
The star led them to the object of their desire. And when they arrived, they were filled with an abundance of joy and they worshipped the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
Oh that the church today would be like the wise men who sought the object of their desire. Oh that the church today would be filled with joy and worship the Desired of all nations.
It was the desire of the nation that caused the shepherds in the hills nearby to leave their flocks and hurry to Bethlehem to see this thing that had happened.
The angel of God gave them the good news and they sought out the newborn baby. And when they had found the newborn King they were amazed and they went out onto the streets and they told everyone whom they could about the King of kings being born that night and they worshipped God for what He had done.
God had shaken the heavens and had shaken the earth and He sent Jesus Christ to set up His kingdom in the world.
When God set His kingdom up on the earth it was a shock to the nations. It caused all things to change. It destroyed idols; it changed the powers of the kingdoms. It established the power of God and once again made it available to all mankind.
So that every disease would be subject to us.
So that every problem would be subject to us.
So that the enemy would be under our feet.
So that we would not have to worry about tomorrow.
God did it all so that those who seek God and make Him the Object of their desire would find Him ready to receive us. Ready to pour out His total blessing in our lives.
Is He the object of your desire?
Does your soul yearn for Him?
Do you seek Him earnestly?
Do you trust in Him?
What you are without God pales in comparison to what you can be with Him.
Are you like Daniel and his friends who desire and request mercy of the God of heaven?
Are you like Isaiah and desire that His name be glorified through you in all the world?
Are you ready to change your desire?
What do you desire today more than anything else?
I believe that once again God is shaking the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry lands. God is sending a fresh anointing upon His church because the time is drawing near for the 2nd Coming of Christ.
God is releasing in us His wisdom, His might, His solution, His will, His provision, His power, His protection, His healing, and His Holy Spirit.
He has given us all we need and all we have to do to receive it is make Him the main object of our desire.
What do you desire today more than anything else?
CLOSE
