Wrong Desires Pervert Our Moral Judgments

 

              By A. W. Tozer

             Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after

              righteousness: for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6

 

                  Unsanctified desire will stop the growth of any Christian

              life  and  conversely, purified  desires  will  tend towards

              righteousness by a kind of gentle moral gravitation.

 

                 In  the  moral  world,  right  desires tend toward life and

              evil ones toward death - that in essence is the scriptural

              teaching on this subject!

                  Whatever a man wants badly enough and persistently

              enough, will determine the man's character.

                  Wrong desire - perverts the moral judgment so that

              we are unable to appraise the desired object at its real

              value.

                  However we try, still a thing looks morally better

              because we want it.  For that reason, our heart is often

              our worst counselor, for if it is filled  with  desire,  it may

              give  us bad advice, pleading the purity of something that

              is in itself anything but pure!

                  When  our  dominant  desires  are  bad, the  whole  life

              is  bad  as a consequence.  When the desires are good,

              the life comes up to the level of our desires, provided that

              we have within us the enabling Spirit.

                  At the root of all true spiritual growth is a set of right and

               sanctified desires.  The  whole  Bible  teaches that we can

               have whatever we want badly  enough - it  hardly  need  be

               said - if our  desire is  according to the will of God!

                 The desire after God and holiness is back of all real

              spirituality, and when that desire becomes  dominant in the

              life, nothing can prevent us from  having  what we want.

                 The longing cry of the God-hungry soul can only be,

           "Oh, to be like Thee!" 

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              Yours in Christ,

              Paul N. F.