What Does God Desire for Us?
“Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.”
Exodus 19:5
If we obey God’s commands, we will be God’s “Special Treasure.” All of God’s commands are for our benefit and are a blessing in our life. The Lord’s desire is to bless us with divine blessings form Heaven that continuously fill our soul. But Satan keeps us from becoming the complete person that God created us to be.
Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. (1 John 5:4) God enables us to overcome the world by drawing us closer to him with a heart of love, and his love is more powerful than all the love on the planet, because God is the source of all love. This will give us a strong secure identity in Christ that nobody can challenge. This Godly identity can enable us to control our emotions when people make us angry, because our identity no longer comes for people. Paul describes this in the following scripture, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. (Galatians 2:20) How someone make us respond in anger, if we no longer live, but Christ lives in us?
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1) If we respond with anger when some triggers our self-centered emotions, then we are a slave to the world. We will never be free in Christ until we are free from self. That’s why God wants us to love him more than any one, so that our identity, security, and self-worth comes only from God, and not from people or anything in the world.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12) This is an extremely important verse to meditate on, to fully understand the blessing of having this command in our hearts. God loves everyone but he hates sin, an we are to love everyone but we hate the sin they do. Our hate goes to Satan who deceives people and triggers their anger. Satan deceives people because his goal is pull people away from God.
We can see Satan is our Christians life when we respond with self-centered anger – for example, “How dare that person say that to me?” Did Jesus show anger as he went to the cross? He asked the Father to forgive the Romans soldiers because they did not know what they were doing, and when we respond out of self-centered angry emotions, do we know what we are doing? Hurting others.
Today seek to reflect God’s love to others, and remember you’re an ambassador for God and your identity is in Christ. You are ministering to everyone you talk to and you are reflecting the heart of Jesus.
Prayer: Lord enable me to live for Christ and reflect the heart of Jesus in all situations. Help me to always know in my heart, that my identity is in Christ.