“Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
~ Psalm 37:4
Follow your heart… Chase your dreams… You do you… The world preaches it a lot these days. Even as far back as the 1600s, Shakespeare penned the line, “To thine own self be true.”
But, the Bible teaches something very different… warning us that “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure…desperately wicked.” Therefore, “Guard your heart above all else, for everything you do flows from it.”
Why, then, does Psalm 37:4 promise, “He shall give you the desires of your heart”?
A Closer Look at the Promise
Let’s look more closely at that promise to discover what it really means. We’ll start with what Jesus had to say about God fulfilling our desires. He said, “If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”
So, there you have it, right? Just ask Jesus for anything you want, and it’s yours? Not exactly…. It’s actually much more rich and satisfying than that.
Wrong Motives or His Glory?
Here we have an excellent example of why context matters when studying the Bible. Verses like this when singled out from the overall chapter or passage can be easily misconstrued and mislead even sincere believers. Let’s back up and examine the chapter overall…
John chapter 14 continues telling the events of the Last Supper, when Jesus preaches His final sermon to the disciples before His arrest at Gethsemane. Though they don’t understand at the time, Jesus tells His followers that once He has returned to the Father in heaven (after His crucifixion, resurrection and ascension), they will do even greater works than those which Jesus performed while in the flesh here on earth.
Most importantly throughout this discourse, Jesus emphasizes that everything He is teaching them, everything He has done and everything that is to come is to glorify the Father. It is in this context — glorifying the Father by doing His will — that we receive Christ’s promise, “Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”
James 4 further confirms that being given the desires of our heart is not about getting everything we want: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” Just a few verses later he exhorts his readers to “purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
We receive what we ask when it is according
to God’s will and brings glory to the Father.
Applying New Desires
So, if the heart is deceitful, and we are prone to ask with wrong motives, how are we supposed to align our motives with His? WE don’t…
God does.
Like the psalmist, we cry out, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Even the language used here tells us that only God can give us a new, clean heart. “Create” here is the Hebrew word bara (H1254a) — the same word used in Genesis 1:1 when “God created the heavens and the earth” out of nothing!
In answer to our cry, God promises:
“‘I will give you a new heart and
put a new spirit within you;
I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh
and give you a heart of flesh.
‘I will put My Spirit within you and cause you
to walk in My statutes, and you will
keep My judgments and do them.’”
~ Ezekiel 36:26-27
Again, the language here is telling. The Hebrew word translated here as “give” and “put” is nathan (H5414), which, according to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, means to “apply, ascribe or assign.” And, it’s the same word used in our key verse, Psalm 37:4: “He will give you the desires of your heart.
From this, we understand what it really means for God to “give you the desires of your heart.” He applies HIS desires to your heart, assigns them… Basically, God overwrites your worldly desires with His godly ones. He gives you the desires themselves. God will nathan into your heart the godly desires that should be there.
Let Us Pray…
Father God,
I thank You that You search my heart and love me in spite of the darkness that You find there. I thank You for offering forgiveness for my sins through faith in your Son, Jesus Christ, and His death on the cross. I confess that He alone is my Lord and Savior.
Only You can cure my deceitful heart, God. I repent of my desperately wicked thoughts and ask You to create in me a clean heart as You promised, O Lord. Apply Your desires to my heart and renew a right spirit within me that I may walk in Your statutes, keep Your judgments and do them. Replace my wrong motives with a desire to bring You glory through all I say and do.
In Jesus’ name I pray,
Amen
Original photo by Susn Matthiessen via Unsplash
Seated at His Feet 