His Kingdom and Your Desires

Hunger after His Kingdom (2)

Christianity has nothing to say to the person who is completely happy with the way things are.

-          John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire

If you open up a red letter Bible (those with Christ’s words printed in red) to the New Testament, you will soon come to the first large chunk of text in red: Matthew chapter 5 to chapter 7. You won’t miss it. This is a record of Jesus’ sermon which is known as the Sermon on the Mount. Straightaway you are given a good idea as to who Jesus has always wanted to speak to and what He has got to say. There is no ambiguity here.

Blessed are the poor… those who mourn…the meek…those who hunger and thirst for righteousness … and the list goes on (Mat 5:3-10). These were the kind of people Jesus was addressing then and the kind of people that even today He wants to speak to. One condition stands out among these people: all of them hunger and thirst for something and all of them want their needs met and their desires fulfilled.  They have Jesus’ primary attention, as you can see how He started His sermon focusing on them. In fact, before we come to Matthew chapter 5, we read in Matthew 4 that right at the start of His ministry Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people (Mat 4:23).  And right after the Sermon, we find in chapter 8 Jesus again healed all who were sick who came to Him (Mat 8:16). What was Jesus doing? He was fulfilling the needs and desires of everyone He met. What He preached correlates to what He did. From the passage leading up to the Sermon and from the passage after the Sermon we can establish the context of the Sermon, and like I say there can be no ambiguity who Jesus wanted to speak to. He always gives His attention to those who hunger and thirst.

So how can we qualify to have God’s attention? Simply come before Him with our needs and desires. In fact God can smell them miles away and He will come running towards us.

The next question is what He will say to those who hunger and thirst. Did Jesus tell these people to be content with their lot? Did He accuse them to be too desirous to be good? Some would have us believe that Jesus would talk like that; the problem is that we can’t see this in the Bible. For each and every need and desire that He identified in His audience, Jesus promised a solution and a breakthrough: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…they shall be comforted…they shall inherit the earth…they shall be filled…and so on. Jesus wants our desires fulfilled. 

Now we come to the most exciting part. Jesus said our desires shall be fulfilled, but did He tell us how they would come to us? Yes, you bet He did! It is by way of His Kingdom. Read Mat 5:3-10 carefully. You will notice that the specific solution stated for the first and last problem is the kingdom of heaven. It is like it envelops all the rest in between. This is the manner of preaching Jesus’ audience was used to. What Jesus means is this: all the solutions for the individual need raised are included in His Kingdom.  Once we have the Kingdom, we have the solutions, we have all we desire – they are all found in there. That’s why Jesus went about preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and He commanded His disciples to go preach the Gospel of the Kingdom, and commissioned us to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom.

It is simple and beautiful. If you are not convinced, you need look no further than this verse:

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. (Mat 6:33, NKJV)

Scripture Link: BibleGateway.com

God Wants Your Needs Met, Your Desires Fulfilled

Hunger after His Kingdom (1)

Everyone has dreams and desires; this is perfectly normal. After all, you are alive! Only dead people have no desires. Look at the vast number of books out there purporting to teach us how to achieve our dreams and fulfill our desires – the “How to…” books coming under the category of “Self-Improvement” or ‘Self-Help” - and you will agree that I am just stating a fact. They sell well because people want to have a crack at fulfilling their dreams. Don’t be deceived, the goal is never just to improve. Ultimately it is to have what we want, what we desire and what we need.

These self-help books could be useful; I have read my share of Dale Carnegie and Anthony Robbins. But they are what they are: SELF-help. You need to rely on your own strength and you need to slog it out.  What if I tell you there is a better say?

“Are you saying that we don’t have to work hard for what we want?” You may ask.

Hold on, I am not proposing some get-rich-quick scheme to you. When I say there’s a better way, I mean you don’t have to do it all on your own. You have God with you, and He wants your needs met and your desires fulfilled. “This is indeed good news,” some will say. More than that, when you know that the almighty God is on your side, you know that you are sure to succeed. You cannot fail, because God cannot fail.

A long time ago a man named Jabez found himself in a very unfavorable condition. His mother even gave him a name which literally means “he will cause pain”. You can read all about him in 1 Chron 4:9-10. In his desperation he cried out to God, telling Him his desires. He had no qualm in asking what he wanted from God, holding nothing back. One by one, his desire was that God bless him, enlarge his territory, put His hand on him, keep evil away and let there be no pain. What was the result? The Bible put it very simply: God granted him what he requested. If God did it for Jabez, surely he will do the same for you.

There is one thing that I need to point out: we shouldn’t make too much a distinction between needs and desires. I don’t think there is a clear-cut line. To Jabez, which one was his need and which one his desire? Some people put it this way: God will give you all that you need, but He is not bound to give you all that you desire. At first look, it seems reasonable. But actually this kind of thinking belies a view of God that is far from the truth. To one who thinks like that, God is either not too generous or else His resources are limited. But we know that neither is true from the witness of the Bible. Jabez is a good example of God’s generosity and willingness to bless. Jesus also told us that if our earthly father knows how to give us good things, so much more our Father God. It is hard to imagine our Father God withholding any good thing from us.  Also, the apostle Paul said that whatever we can think of asking God, He is able to do far more. There is no limit to God’s resources.  

Believe that God wants your needs met and your desires fulfilled, and you are positioning yourself to be greatly blessed.

Scripture Link: BibleGateway.com

God Restores Our Loss

Have you ever experienced God’s supernatural power in restoring loss? I bet you have. But if you have not, know this: God is in the business of restoration. It matters not whether it’s your money, business, relationship, marriage, health or any other things.

Jesus said, "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." (John 10:10, NKJV)

The “thief” in this verse refers to the devil. His job description is to steal, and to kill and to destroy. If there is a devil loose out there you can expect to suffer some loss some time, especially if you have never taken God to be your refuge. Well, it’s not always the devil’s fault; I think about 99% of the time only. Somewhere else in the Bible we are told that the job description of Jesus is to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). So to put things in perspective, to have life … to have it more abundantly would have to include restoration of all things lost.

A few days ago I got to listen to Bill Johnson’s sermon that he delivered on Easter (Apr 24, 2011). I tell you, it was a sumptuous treat to the spirit. He gave many true-life testimonies as is his habit when preaching, but this time the testimonies on restoration are simply mind-boggling! I don’t know what word to use to describe them, let me relate just two of them to you as accurately as I can.

Bobby Conner, a fellow minister close to Bill’s ministry, once lost a pocket knife given to him by another fellow minister. The knife carried a lot of sentimental value to Bobby because it’s given to him by a good friend. One day some time after the loss, he suddenly thought about it and he didn’t know why but just blurted out, “Hey, I want my knife back!”  Instantly something fell out of the air above his bed and dropped on the bed in the centre of the room – it was his very knife! This incident happened a few years back and Bill had also shared it amongst many other testimonies about supernatural restoration by God in his famous 2008 Easter sermon.

A few weeks ago one of their students (Bill’s Bethel Church) lost his lap-top. It was stolen. The computer was of course valuable, but what he felt most frustrating was that the file of his college dissertation was stored in its hard drive. He didn’t get back his computer so he bought a new one. He had heard Bill share about the “I want my knife back” testimony. As he opened up the new computer, he said, “I want my dissertation back.” Guess what? He found his old file in the new computer! This is an astounding miracle! How would this be possible except it be God’s doing?

Take heart my friend, especially if you have lost something precious. This is my favorite verse regarding restoration:

And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.

And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed. (Joel 2 :25-26, KJV)

(To view part of Bill Johnson’s Easter 2008 sermon, Click Here)

(To listen to Bill Johnson’s Easter 2011 sermon, Click Here or Click Here)