Can God Change My Desires?

    

Bad Habits and desires

Are negative habits and desires like entertainment, drugs, food, and fleeting emotional pleasures stopping you from living in God's purpose for your life?

We are spiritual beings with a God-shaped void in our hearts that can only be filled by God. This void will not be fulfilled if we try to fill it with money, position, success, passion, sex, gossip, possessions, power, prestige, or any other desires of the flesh and the eyes.

"Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever." 1 John 2:15-17

God can rewire your mind and change the way you think

Doctors and counselors cannot rewire your brain to break the attraction of our fleshly desires. No amount of punishment or persuasion will change a person's heart for the better. Only God has the ability to completely and permanently rewire your brain and convert you into someone more like Him: To desire what He desires. To desire to live in His purpose for you. Lasting inner change can only come from the one who created us because most of our battles are won or lost in the mind. 

"Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." Romans 12:2

Behavior modification does not succeed since the emphasis is solely on changing behavior. You have to address the source of the problem, which is the thinking that causes the behavior; i.e. the mind. Cutting down a tree without removing the roots will result in the tree sprouting again in a short time. Similarly, focusing on symptoms (bad behaviors) rather than the source (our thinking) is a futile attempt. If you want to transform your thinking, you must immerse yourself in God's word and nourish your spirit.

"Jesus replied, “It’s written, People won’t live only by bread, but by every word spoken by God." Matthew 4:4

If you seek Him with a true heart, He will replace your longing and desire for earthly things of the flesh.  He will cause you to spontaneously want to do good.  He will offer meaning and purpose to your life. Because the Holy Spirit will dwell in your life, those fleeting thrills will have no power over you. God demonstrates to us on a daily basis the futility and despair of life apart from God, in that life's pleasures will never entirely satisfy us.  True and lasting change can only come from God.

"Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there." Galatians 5:24

Accepting Pruning

Pruning is one of the most important aspects of plant growth. A conscientious gardener takes time to prune what is dead and unproductive. Though it may seem counterintuitive to trim something you want to grow, a plant will suffer if it is not pruned. If decaying, aged, and dead branches continue to rob the plant of vitality, it will be unable to absorb the nutrients it requires for growth. The same concept applies to your spiritual life. You must be trimmed if you want to develop in your walk with Christ.

"He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." John 15:2

This verse reminds us that Jesus is the True Vine and he has simply called us to “be a branch.” For when a branch is not attached to a vine - it can not bear fruit, provide shade, or even grow.

Pruning your spiritual life entails more than simply seasonal cutting-back; it is a life-long process of being emptied and filled again. Every time you read God's Word, the Holy Spirit trims away your fleshly desires and replaces them with truth. Every storm, every difficult season, and every discipline are important for our growth.

God prunes away whatever that leads us to be unfruitful - immorality, distractions, and self-sufficiency. And He removes anything that hampers our growth, even sometimes "good" things, for the purpose of something better. God desires to be Lord of our bodies, minds, and hearts. When we learn to embrace God's pruning shears, we will be able to see him at work in all aspects of our lives, especially during difficult times.

If you are in the midst of a pruning season, pull up the dead and useless branches of our lives and trust God to produce beauty from the ashes. Because He is the True Vine and we are its branches. Remember that there is always an escape route for any temptation. Make prayer your first line of defense. 

"I say, then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want." Galatians 5:16 - 17 

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