What Does God Wants From Us?
So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27, NKJV). The Bible tells us that one of the highest, ultimate goals that God has in store for each one of us is our transformation in Him. The Bible tells us that God wants to sanctify us and transform us into the express image of his son, Jesus Christ. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour we are giving God authority to do this transformation. God requires us to die to self. He wants to see you 'die to self' so He can live 'in you'. He wants you to completely surrender your life and old self to Him so He can re-create you into a brand new creation. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29, NKJV). Paul expresses it so beautifully in (Romans 6:18-19, NKJV) "And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness" .
This life of Jesus Christ comes with a price…it will cost you, your life for His life. “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it" (Matthew 7:13-14,NLT).
The Holy Spirit once spoke to me and said "Above all other things the thing I want most from my children is their complete trust". He wants us to surrender everything to Him. He wants us to trust Him so explicitly that we can live in an ultimate freedom that whatever comes our ways we will trust Him that the outcome will be good. I think that for me personally this has been one of the hardest things to do. Control was a means of self protection for me. Playing God and trying to control every situation within my environment because of fear and worry ended up not working so well for me. God had to take control from me. This proved to be a very painful exercise. God showed me also that all I ever did was try to please Him by striving in good works. The striving was through a never ending desire for approval because of the rejection I had experienced most of my life. Striving and trying to control everything made me carry many burdens that were never mine to carry. He told me that although living by His Moral Statutes was important to Him, it was not nearly as important to Him as trusting Him and loving Him. I think that many of us need to get this point - God loves us so much and nothing we do will make Him love us any more than He already does. He is our Father and His love is unconditional. I struggled so much with this that I asked God to help me trust Him. He showed me one day that I had a mindset which prevented me trusting Him. I lived in fear and suffered panic attacks and believed the worst in every situation. My mindset wouldn't allow me to see these situations in a positive light. Only God can remove these mindsets!
God also requires praise, glorification and thanksgiving from us. This is even more essential in the times we perceive as hard. Praising, glorifying and thanking God is a God given gift for us to use in times of need, as it unleashes His power into the situation.
Another very important thing Father God wants from us is to hunger and thirst for His righteousness. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled (Matthew 5:6, NKJV). God wants us to hunger and thirst for His righteousness, then everything else will be added unto us (Matthew 6:33). He wants us to hate what He hates, and love what He loves. He wants to put to death the fleshy desires and produce fruits of righteousness in our fleshly members. We are told that we are now righteous, because we have put on the righteousness of Christ. This is correct, as this is how God see us, but clearly God wants more from us. He wants our fleshly areas to reflect our born-again righteous spirit. Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in his ways. You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours (Psalm 128, 1-2, NKJV). Unfortunately a lot of people think this is too hard. Many will walk away. Humans have volatile emotions and very strong flesh that wars against the Spirit. God told me that I made all my decisions from my emotions. This is not good. He asked for my permission to sanctify my emotions and crucify them. I said yes and knew that this was not going to be easy. He then asked if He could impart to me His justice. He wanted to impart to me everything He hated, and everything He loved. He wanted to create in me a new Heart - His heart! I was going to hate the things of the world, and love Godly things and His righteousness. In our own strength we cannot deny our own flesh. It is simply too hard at times. We can strive, but that only makes us end up feeling condemned. This is where God's grace (empowering strength) and love kick in. When we receive the Holy Spirit at the time of our salvation, this is the seal that you are forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ through God's grace. Jesus freed us from the curse of eternal death in Hell, and separation from Him, which means upon salvation we inherit eternal life in Heaven with God our Father. We however may not inherit Kingdom blessings on earth, while we are entertaining ourselves with the things of the world. Gods ways are not our ways! Nor are His thoughts our thoughts! Allowing God to change us through the many trials and circumstances whilst continuing to trust Him is something I believe God rewards His children for. Thank goodness for us, God is right beside us helping us through the transformation so we don't have to strive. All we need to do is yield. We need to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. How do we do this? By declaring who we are in Christ each day. Meditating on and declaring the Word of God over our lives. We must become Kingdom thinkers, and Kingdom livers.
The Ten Commandments and various other commands given to Moses and the Prophets cover what God views as RIGHT and WRONG. The Ten Commandments are immersed into the two commands spoken by Jesus which is about Love. Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22, 37-40, NKJV). God's Moral Law is still in effect and just as current as today. God in fact has put them in our minds and written them on our hearts. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people (Hebrews 8:10, NKJV). If we break even one of these, we are still seen by God as righteous because we are covered in the righteousness of Christ. However our flesh (mind, will, emotions and physical body) can suffer when we walk in the flesh. This gives satan a legal right to oppress us! Lucky for us, we are still saved at this point, we still inherit eternal life with God in Heaven, and we no longer have to sacrifice sheep, cows, pigs, chickens, birds and the like for forgiveness. We simply need to repent and ask for His help. No need for condemnation either. Condemnation is from the devil. God never condemns, He deals with us in love. God still loves us and sees us as righteous, as the only way He can see us is through the righteousness of Christ. The Bible tells us the only way we lose our salvation is if we willfully sin, and reject Jesus. 'Wilfully sinning' is sinning without remorse or care as opposed to 'sinning in weakness’. When we have a weakness we need to ask Jesus to heal us and help us to overcome it. We know we are sinning and our conscience is convicted and we feel bad. Wilful sinning is when we have a weakness and don’t care about our sin – in other words we say ‘stuff you Jesus I like this sin and it is higher than you and I don’t care about sinning’. We are not asking Him into that weakness to help us overcome it so it means we make the sin or weakness an idol. For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The LORD will judge His people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:26-31, NKJV).
PRAYER: “Dear God I give You permission to sanctify and put to death my human emotions. Human emotions lie and they are not of God. I ask for You to place within me the Spirit of Truth, so I will become a lover of Your truth. Place within me a new heart - the heart of God. Teach me to hate what You hate, and to love what You love. I am a fleshy person living in a fleshly world, and because of that there are fleshly pleasures that operate within me. These things do not glorify Your Holy name. In my own strength I cannot give them up. I give You permission Lord Jesus to help me to remove these things from my life. I want to be separate from the world. In Jesus name - Amen".
Another very important thing God wants from us is to aide in His salvation plan for others. God had a purpose and a plan for us the moment we were conceived in our mother's wombs - to save souls. The commandment spoken from Jesus Christ shows us exactly that: "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you" (John 15:12-14, NKJV). The Lord is showing us that we must put 'His needs' above our own and 'laying down' one's life for our brothers and sisters is a commandment. Our whole purpose in God is to be servants for Him, so He can use us for the purpose He created us for, which is to bring salvation and freedom to others. This is what the Bible calls true fasting. “No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you.Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help (Isaiah 58:6-7, NKJV). Many of us think we fulfill our Christianity by striving to act righteous and do good works. Many believe this will earn them rewards and blessings because we are doing these things in the Name of Jesus Christ. “Not everyone who calls out to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of My Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to Me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in Your name and cast out demons in Your name and performed many miracles in Your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from Me, you who break God’s laws " (Matthew 7:21-23, NLT). I believe we are obtain 'blessings' as we appropriate 'God's will' for our lives. Faith with works is another way we receive these blessings. Faith with works is when we 'hear', 'obey' and 'do'! Gods will can be very different to 'our will'. It is using our gifts with faith and love and allowing God to change us into the new Christ-like creation, through trials and tribulations. The highest form of love for God is obedience and trusting in Him. By putting your own needs second, and making yourself available to God, for Him to use you to bless others you will be well on your way to achieving all God has for you. If we make ourselves available for God to use we will see amazing miracles, lives changed and most importantly the goodness of God.
(See also Do we need to keep repenting)
By Tania Francis