Ups and Downs
Now flee youthful lusts, and pursue after righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart. 2 Timothy 2:22 NASB
Pursue after – Something makes you do it. You don’t want to, but at the moment when you should say, “No,” something just overtakes you and you end up in the wrong place. That split second of anger. That instant glance. That persistent thought that just won’t pass. Like Paul said, an alien force attacks from within.
What’s the solution? Just get rid of all this uncontrollable lust? That’s the usual answer. Discipline! More prayer! More discipline! But it doesn’t work, does it? The problem is not the solution and the problem is you, not something you must be rid of.
We know that “youthful lusts” is epithymias, violent forces of compulsion. These are the expressions of the yetzer ha’ra and the only way you will get rid of them is to be dead. They are what provides you the energy of life, the passion to change your world, the reason for doing anything at all. They cannot be erased as long as you are breathing. In fact, we might even suggest that the yetzer ha’ra is a gift from God, the essential motivating power of His Spirit breathed into you. The problem is not the forceful energy. The problem is direction.
“Pursue after” is the Greek verb dioko. Amazingly, it is just as strong as epithymeo. It is translated “to impel, to persecute, to expel, to accuse, to follow zealously.” No passionless sloth here. This is just as much a power verb as is “to desire.” If epithymeo is an alien force, so is dioko. You and I are just the playing field where these volcanic battles take place. In fact, we are the only playing field for these forces because they make us who we are—in God’s image. Did you think for one second that God isn’t also both epithymeo and dioko? Doesn’t He passionately create, bring His will into being, fight for righteousness, forcefully hunt down the faithful, strive for the good? Isn’t God filled with desire? How could His breath in you be anything less? The difference is the direction. He pursues what is good. You and I often pursue what is good for us. Paul exhorts us to drop the prepositional phrase and follow the same path that God is on.
Don’t destroy your passion! Don’t try to erase what the Spirit loaned to you. Just drop the prepositional phrase. Change the direction, not the fire. Why do you think God promises to give you the desires of your heart? So that you can live pabulum lives? He wants to put His desires into your heart so that all that rage for life will be directed toward His ends. Get furious (Paul called it anger) and don’t sin.
Topical Index: pursue after, dioko, desire, epithymeo, yetzer ha’ra, 2 Timothy 2:22
And how to go about changing the direction of desire? What is desire? If we are indeed made in the image of our Creator, then the desire is about love, is it not? If it were not, then the deceiver would not have to deceive. He could just come and say “I want to kill, steal and destroy; please just listen and do what I say”.
There are now statements coming out of the scientific world that say, unequivocably, that we are made to run on love; that we are wired for love. We run into trouble, in fact, when we are not giving or receiving love. What does this tell me?
This tells me that the only reason I have to listen to anything is if it is promising me love. Even the worst temptation I have ever endured, looked to me at the time like love. If it did not, I would not have been interested, and the Liar would not have had to lie to me: “this is love”. What other lie can he come up with, if the truth is that he “comes only to kill, steal and destroy”?
The propensity I have to listen to lies is in proportion to the beliefs I hold about love that are NOT TRUE. If I was poorly loved in my life, AND LIED TO ABOUT IT, then I am left with beliefs about love that are not so, and those beliefs drive me to listen to the deceiver, who comes to me with even more lies about how to fix my love problem. If I was taught that love has to be earned, then all the liar has to do is come with all kinds of ‘ways’ for me to do that, and then with even more ‘ways’ to fix the resulting damage from following those ways, ad nauseum. This will continue (and did, y’all!) until I decided to go back and re-check the data. When I decided to believe the Word when it taught me that love cannot be earned, I had to repent for an entire boatload of behaviors and supporting mindsets that kept me performing for love, but, (and this is my testimony), at the end of that period, not only had I shut up a whole lot of mental torment, I had asked for the damage to my heart from believing those lies to be healed, and, voila! The physical damage to my body vanished, too!
The Word is right! My heart, mind, and body ARE one, and what goes down in one manifestation goes down in the other ones, too! Halleluah!
About those desires. They are not my problem, like Skip has pointed out so well; it is when I am believing things that ARE NOT SO about them, that I have run into trouble. If I want to run from trouble, then I must be willing to take my thoughts captive, hold those suckers down, and force a confession out of every one of them, and the confession that I am after is “WHAT WAS I BELIEVING TO HAVE HAD THAT THOUGHT THAT DROVE THAT ACTION?”, and then line that belief up with the Word. If it does not ring true, then I am believing something about love that is not true. And to the extent that I am doing that, there is going to be torment in my heart, mind and body. Torment that says only one thing: “STOP!” Halleluah! I think I will!
I have found this to be true: to the extent that I am believing things that are true about love is the extent that I cannot be lied to, and therefore it is the extent that my desires are free to express the love they were created to express.
Laurita thank you for that perspective! I never looked at it that way.
When our focus is on us, the deceiver shows up.
When our focus is on Him, the truth is revealed.
John the Baptist put us in the right direction
when he simply said:
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
“Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, that you may live and possess the land which the LORD your God is giving you.” – Deuteronomy 16:20
But what is ‘justice’?!
interesting …. chewing 🙂