To Desire the Lord

This week, Michael writes that the Lord is always looking for men and women to talk with those who do not know about the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, the one person we should be looking for is “the person in the mirror”. What is it that a child of God should desire most? God said through the Psalmist in Psalm 37:4, “delight thyself also in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” In order to desire the things of God, we must actively, deliberately, and purposefully delight ourselves in the Lord. Then, when our delight is His delight, and our desire is His desire, God will work in us and through us to will and to do of His good pleasure. 

To desire the Lord and to set our affection on things above, remember the acronym KFLO. The first and highest desire is represented by the letter “K”: to “Know God deeply and abidingly” by knowing His character and His nature. The Bible says repeatedly, rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. Know God intimately because He’s worth knowing. According to Philippians 3:8, Paul said, “I consider all things but loss except for the knowledge of God.” Everything else is worthless, detestable, and repugnant except for knowing the Lord. The Lord, through the Apostle Paul says, in Ephesians 1:17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercy may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know the hope of your calling and the riches of the glory of your inheritance in the Saints. This passage refers to the precise and correct knowledge of our Father. We must know correctly who God is according to His rightly divided Word; the Holy Bible. Prayer cannot come from a depth of fear, rather prayer must come from a confident and faith-based trust in the sovereign Lord. Unless the Lord builds the house it is built in vain. Jesus said, “you do err, not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God.” An intimate knowledge of God is required to appropriate the power of God.

Jesus said in Matthew 16:24, “If anyone comes after me he must deny himself, pick up his cross daily and follow me.”

“F” stands for “following Christ more closely.” In any situation the best course of action is to closely watch Jesus. Our heart’s desire must be to “choke in the Master’s dust”, (aka follow closely). Jesus said, “if you continue in my word, then shall you be my disciples (disciplined followers) indeed. When we follow Him closely there is no distance between myself and my Lord. Follow Him in lockstep, for he knows the destination and the way. Jesus also said to the crowds that followed him, if you want to be my disciples, you will need to “eat my flesh and drink my blood.” They didn’t understand that He was talking about the communion ceremony that would memorialize His death and resurrection to redeem them from their sin nature. They did not follow Jesus around because they wanted to be His disciplined followers. They just wanted to be entertained by witnessing a miracle. At that point of hearing about eating flesh and drinking blood, the crowds scattered because they didn’t understand the depth of the commitment required to follow Christ.

“L” stands for “loving him more deeply.” If you profess to love Christ, but don’t do His will, do you really love him? If Jesus is truly the Lord of your life, then the term “No Lord, I won’t do that” is an oxymoron. Do we desire to love Him the way He asks us to love him? Jesus said that anyone who loves his father or mother more than me does not deserve me, he is not worthy of me. The example of love is that Jesus Christ, even while we were yet sinners, laid down his life for us. To lie down means to appoint or to position ourselves to serve the Lord by serving one another. Jesus Christ said, in this shall they know that you are my disciples in that you love one another. 

“O” stands for “obeying Christ more completely.” In our secular politically correct culture, the word “obey” is a dirty word. But if anyone obeys Christ’s word, truly his love is made complete. Chose you this day whom you will serve and obey, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Philippians 2:8 says, “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Christ’s obedience resulted in your salvation and mine. Therefore, trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.

In your desire for the Lord remember the acronym KFLO: to know him more intimately, to follow him more closely, to love him more deeply and to obey him more completely. The prayer of the people of God is, “Oh for a closer walk with thee… But what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”

May God richly bless you!
Your brother in Christ, Michael