What is your hearts desire?

Romans 10:1-2

Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.

Paul's hearts desire was for his people to be saved. What is our hearts desire? What do we desire above all else? I know for me it's often things which are worthless. As a younger teenager one of my main hearts desires was to get really high levels on Runescape. My Hearts desire now (as I've expressed in a number of posts) is so often to have my friends approval. But that's not good enough.

Those things have no value when we look on life from an eternal perspective, so we should be working to reorientate our desires. One of our chief desires should be to share the gospel and for those around us to be saved. Why is that?

If we truly recognise our total depravity and the sinfulness of every human being who is alive, and if we acknowledge God's justice, then we have to conclude that everyone deserves and is headed for God's wrath. But if we are Christians then there is complete salvation in Jesus. He came to earth and died in our place so that anyone who puts their faith in him and repents will be entirely forgiven. If we truly understand and believe that, we should be overjoyed and therefore want others to be saved. Jesus is the only way for us to be saved, we need to tell others.

How can we work on reorienting our desires?

• Pray. Pray for God's help to love him more and to love his word more and to love other people more. Ultimately it is only God who can change us and help us to love him and serve him.
• Read the bible. Reflect on who God is and work hard to understand the gospel better. 
• Act. There's no use saying that you want to change but then not working at it. We need to act, to pray for and look for opportunities to share the gospel and to act on them. Sure, we will fail, and I am in no way saying that this is easy - it's one of the things that I struggle with most. Nevertheless if we truly want to change we need to work at it. Jesus commands us to share the gospel on multiple occasions. We should obey out of love. (Matthew 28:18-20, John 14:23)

I'm not saying that this should be our only desire. We should also desire to know God more and to be more godly. There's nothing wrong with wanting strong friendships or wanting to be healthy and wealthy, there are plenty of good and important things to desire, and it isn't wrong to do so. But God needs to be at the centre of all that we do and desire.

What is your hearts desire?