<\/p>\n
I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
\n\u2013Romans 12:1<\/p><\/blockquote>\nYou may have a desire that corresponds with Scripture and follows common sense. Yet that desire may not be God\u2019s will for your life. That\u2019s because all our desires are subject to God\u2019s sovereign plan.<\/p>\n
Consider the example of David. In 1 Kings 8:17\u201319, Solomon said, \u201cIt was in the heart of my father David to build a house for the name of the\u00a0Lord, the God of Israel. But the\u00a0Lord\u00a0said to my father David, \u2018Because it was in your heart to build a house for My name, you did well that it was in your heart. Nevertheless you shall not build the house, but your son who will be born to you, he will build the house for My name.\u2019\u201d David loved God. He was faithful to God except for a few notable lapses. He was a man after God\u2019s own heart. And David had a burning desire to build a temple for the Lord. God said, \u201cDavid, that\u2019s a great idea. But you\u2019re not the one who\u2019s going to carry it out.\u201d No matter how good our plans are, ultimately God has the final say.<\/p>\n
I think about Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. He prayed, \u201cMy Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me\u201d (Matthew 26:39). Jesus was saying, \u201cSpare Me, Father, from the physical and spiritual agony of the crucifixion.\u201d Yet He went on to pray, \u201cNot as I will, but as You will\u201d (v. 39). And in some inexplicable way, the Father\u2019s will became the Son\u2019s will. It\u2019s the same way for us. Our desires are superseded by God\u2019s sovereign plan.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s only one place in the New Testament where the apostle Paul told us to discover God\u2019s will for our lives, and that\u2019s in Romans 12:2. But before that, in verse 1, he commanded us to subject our will to God\u2019s will: \u201cI urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.\u201d God doesn\u2019t want you to place a dead animal on the altar; He wants a living sacrifice. He wants you to submit your life and your desires to His will. Paul continued, \u201cDo not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect\u201d (v. 2).<\/p>\n
Does God speak to us through our desires? Absolutely. But Paul was saying, ultimately, the only desires we can trust are those that have been transformed by the power of God and sacrificed on the altar of God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. \u2013Romans 12:1 You may have a desire that corresponds with Scripture and follows common sense. Yet that desire may not be God\u2019s will for your life. … Continue reading “Pathway to Victory – Devotion”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184715"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184743,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184715\/revisions\/184743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}