Persistence and Desire (with MP3!)

How does the Bible define desire?

Desiring is consistent; it’s what we do publicly, and it’s how we carry our hearts privately. We live in desire and it doesn’t mean that we’re red hot with an intense desire all the time. It’s a decision – we are going after these things. We’re going to align our life with the Word of God and with the Spirit in private and public.

This definition of desire is reaching for the things of God, of valuing them, of being faithful with them when the wind is barely blowing, of posturing our inner man to go with it even when nothing big is happening.

Jesus told this lady in Matthew 15, “I am going to give you according to what you desire.” That wasn’t a special desire He gave her. But He gives to everyone according to what they consistently desire. That is the way He runs His kingdom.

One of the most painful, offensive definitions of biblical desire is that we stay steady even when we don’t receive the answer we want for a season.

The passage in Matthew 15:21 – 28 teaches us the power of persistence and pressing into God unrelentingly.

What happens often is that in our request and pursuit of the Lord to break in and touch us, the Lord doesn’t answer us with one word. He doesn’t say “yes” or “no,” He says nothing. Silence is His response.

Unfortunately, we often interpret silence as a “no.” Jesus wasn’t saying “no,” He was saying nothing and the apostles assumed Jesus was saying “no.” Often we assume the answer was no when the Lord was silent.

What the Lord was doing was using this whole process to teach us something. It’s a three-step process. He was stirring her heart in these three responses. In Matthew15:23, Jesus was silent. In Matthew 15:25, He seemingly refuses her. Then, in Matthew 15: 26, He seemingly insults her.

Jesus was stirring her heart and causing what was in her to come to full boil – the passion and the desire in her to be awakened and stirred. In that process, a lot of people go the other direction. Instead of being stirred, instead of becoming more urgent and more diligent, what happens is that they get offended at God and they get bitter and cynical and jaded in their faith. They lose that sense of anticipation for the Lord to break in with power.

Jesus made a powerful phrase in Matthew 15:28. He said, “Let it be to you as you desire.”

What an incredible statement that is applicable to every believer, “Let it be to everyone who desires. Let it be to your family and to your individual life and to your assignment in the marketplace or in ministry; let it be to you as you desire it to be.”

Some people take the word desire and they take it at its lowest, meaning its lowest meaning and application. “Oh, I went to a healing conference once or I read a book on healing by John G. Lake. I desired healing for about ten days!” From Jesus’ definition, that is not a desire that’s a passing mood. You were in a desperate, two-week period and got stirred up by a few things.

Jesus will give the people what they truly desire, what they carry in their hearts in an unrelenting way. “I have to have the fullness of what God will give the human spirit in our generation!” If that’s really what we desire, Jesus will tell you this, “Let it be to you according to what you continually desire, even in the secret place when no one is looking in your life.”

It’s not what you desire at the healing conference; it’s what you continually desire in the secret place of your heart. That is precisely what God gives His people. It’s very easy for believers to get stirred up for a moment and then settle into what we really desire long-term, which is to have things as business as usual. None of us really like business as usual, but we want to do our own thing or carry our heart in our own way, without that relentless pressing into God.

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