Hosanna Restoration Church

I have often prayed and asked God things like “help me love you more or help me want you more.” Sometimes after I do that I feel like He should not have to help me to love Him or praise Him or want Him. After all He is so wonderful that my own desires should be more than enough to bring out faithfulness to God. This scripture encourages me that even though I have plenty of reasons to want God more and to want to please Him more, still the Holy Spirit is at work inside of me for that very purpose.

Isn’t it wonderful to think that God would go to such great lengths to see that we are in the right place to receive His blessings? He of course knows how easily we are distracted. He knows how we can be hot and cold. And so the Helper works in us to keep the desire going. He is the one who reminds us to turn back to God. No matter how far we may stray, no matter how big our fall, still He is in us giving us the desire to obey Him. Not only does He work giving us the desire, but He also empowers us to do what is right.

Since God gives us the power to do what is right, it is very wrong for us to say that we cannot do what He is asking. Nothing is impossible. All things are possible with God. Why? Because He gives us the power, that’s why. It is a good prayer when we ask God to fill our hearts with His desires. It is a good prayer to ask Him to help us to do those things that please Him. If you think about it, it only makes sense. If we could do those things in our own power without the Holy Spirit working in us, then we could think we earned our place with God.

Now someone may be thinking, “that is great news, that means that if I don’t do things right then it is Gods fault because he is supposed to give me the desire to the right things.” Sorry, that just won’t work. Even though He gives us the desire and the power, He still gives us a choice. We can always choose to follow our own selfish desires. And we do, we might as well admit it and repent of it. On any given day we have things come up and the Spirit leads toward the right thing, but we often ignore Him and go ahead and do what we wanted in the first place. The Holy Spirit says we should love and we prefer to hold things against people. The Holy Spirit says give, and we think we better wait. The Holy Spirit says pray, and we choose to worry a while longer.

I think maybe we should all ask the Holy Spirit to work harder at increasing our desire to please God. The greater that desire is, the more natural it is to just go ahead walk in the power that God gives us to enable us to do what He desires. Have you ever wondered why some people seem to flow in more power? Well certainly the Spirit gives gifts as He wills, but could it be that He wills to give to those who most desire to do what God wants? Lord, work in us all giving us the desire to obey you and the power to do what pleases you. And give us extra strength to resist our own selfish desires.