Our Heart's Desires // Wisdom That Works, Part 12

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Many people imagine that if they started believing in God - well, man, look at all the things I’d have to give up. And that’s true - there are some things we have to turn away from. But what I never expected was that all of a sudden what I wanted would change - and then, that God would give me the desires of my heart.

This week again on the program we're looking at some of Gods wisdom. The sort of wisdom that actually works. To be frank when I first started reading God’s word, this thing called the Bible, my expectations of that stuffy old book were pretty low. I thought it was pretty much irrelevant, truly.

And well, if I was going to call myself a Christian, well I suppose I have to pray and I suppose I have to read the Bible, just one of those chores, the price you have to pay to get eternal life. Seriously, that's what I thought. So the last thing I expected was this vibrant living thing, God speaking His love and His grace and even His wisdom into my life in a way, get this, in a way that actually works. In a way that radically makes my life better.

But that's exactly what I discovered. Page after page, verse after verse as I read it and thought about it and how it might work in my life and prayed about it, I met God. I met a Jesus who wants to make my life better by getting rid of the sin out of my life, the stupid things we all want to do that end up hurting us and robbing us of the life He planned for us.

And then by taking our hearts and filling them with His love and humility and showing us the depth of joy that comes from living our lives for Him, living our lives with love for other people. My friend, let me tell you, with all that I am this was the very last thing I expected to find in the Bible.

See the funny thing is the reason I'd held my life back from God for the first thirty six years was I was afraid of what I'd have to give up. I've always been pretty clever, I'm fortunate, I have a quick sharp mind and always been industrious and resourceful.

And so what I'd done in my life was to take these 2 natural talents, other people have different talents but these were mine, and used them, well used them for me of course. I'd figured out that I could use them to make lots of money. I knew that because I was strong and articulate and driven. I could crash through just about any obstacle. I could walk over just about any other person to get to where I was going.

To make the career. To get the recognition. To get the wealth that I hungered after. And deep, deep down I knew that if I invited God into my life to be my Lord and my Saviour I'd have to get off the throne, I'd have to surrender that to Him. Not sure I could have quite put it into those words back then but that was it.

It wasn't that I didn't believe in God, I've believed pretty much for most of my life that He was out there somewhere, I just had this uneasy dread that one day the day of reckoning would come. It's just that I duped myself into believing that my brand of evil, frankly let's call a spade a spade, that's what my selfishness was, that my brand of evil was somehow, well okay, I'd get by, it wouldn't be too bad.

It was good that I was driven. It was good that I was getting wealthy and recognised in my field and industry. It was good that I was making it and that con job, my friend, is a con job that the devil is working on countless people walking on this planet today.

It's not evil what you're doing, it's good, it's good that you're making it, sure go for it. And if someone gets in your road just roll over the top of them and squash them like a fly. I wonder perhaps if you don't relate to just a little of what I'm saying.

This is a universal human condition; it's a condition that God calls sin. And the worst thing is, the most dangerous thing is that we end up believing that it's good. So have a listen with me now to God’s wisdom on the difference between good and evil. It's a wisdom that shines light on this oh so important topic and it's the sort of light, I think, that makes us see evil for what it is. And my prayer is that it makes us desire good over evil.

Have a listen, Proverbs chapter 10 beginning at verse 22:

The blessing of the Lord makes rich and He adds no sorrow with it. Doing wrong is like sport to a fool but wise conduct is pleasure to a person of understanding. What the wicked dread will come upon them but the desire of the righteous will be granted. When the tempest passes the wicked are no more but the righteous are established forever.

See God being God, He always starts off by telling us about the blessing He has in store for us. God reveals Himself to us as our Father. Jesus literally to the horror of the religious leaders of the day, Jesus called Him Dad. And listen to me, every dad wants to bless his children. We do, we love to bless our kids and God is no different.

The blessing of the Lord makes rich and He adds no sorrow with it.

Friend, God wants to bless us and when He does He makes us rich. I'm not talking about money necessarily, you know sometimes He blesses us financially but money isn't what makes us happy. There's something deep inside that makes us happy, a deep abiding joy.

The sort I could never find when I was working at my particular brand of evil in this world. The sort that always eluded me. I thought I had to give something up by giving up my evil ways and sure, in one sense, I did. But the reality was that the prize was that one thing I'd been looking for all my life, doh.

I was living the first part of this next verse without realising the blessing in the second part:

Doing wrong is like sport to a fool but wise conduct is pleasure to a person of understanding.

So, I was living like a fool and as I said earlier I always had a deep sense of dread down inside that one day this would all come unstuck, one day the house of cards would fall over, one day something bad would happen, that one day I would have to stand before God and give account.

And that's exactly what God said is going to happen, next verse, Proverbs chapter 10, verse 24:

What the wicked dread will in fact come upon them but the desire of the righteous will be granted.

See the wicked live in dread but the righteous look forward to goodness and God’s saying, 'I will grant that which you look forward to'.

I've proved the first bit of this in my life because it's exactly what happened, what the wicked dread will come upon them. In fact did come crashing down upon me. But I also in the process of discovering the profound truth in the second part now that I'm living my life for Him. That the desire of the righteous will be granted.

God grants us the desire of our hearts when we're living out our lives for Him. Elsewhere, Psalm 37 in verse 4 He tells us so:

Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Friend, God wants to give us good things like any dad and now that the desires I have going on in my heart are for the most part things that spring out of the delight I have in God. My point is we all have things to deal with, you do, I do, but more and more my desires flow from God’s desires.

You know what? God’s a great Dad. He's a fantastic Dad and I'm discovering He really does want to bless me with His joy and His peace and His love right in the middle of the storms of my life. Right in the middle of all the trials and the challenges.

A lot of them haven't gone away, in fact the more we step out onto the spiritual battlefield to weigh in for God on this planet, the more the battles are going to come our way. But in the middle of those God blesses us. That's the point.

And how does it all end? The story of life when we either live out a life of rebellion against God or a life honouring Him? What's the end game? Proverbs chapter 10, verse 25:

When the tempest passes the wicked are no more but the righteous are established forever.

And all those years I thought I was going to lose something by going out and serving God. What a fool I was.