Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by John Ortberg from his book, The Me I Want to Be (p. 83). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Ok, but is this a good thing? John goes on, “If we could purge away all our sin, we would still desire material things because God created that stuff. All stuff, ultimately, is part of God’s creation, and therefore it is all good. And therefore, it is desirable. “Do you like money? In Acts 16 we read about Lydia, a businesswoman dealing in textiles, who was the first convert to Christianity in Europe. She had an eye for design and a flair for making money. Imagine the passion and drive it would take for a woman to succeed in business in the ancient world. She was good enough at it that she owned her own home, and it was large enough that it became part of her ministry. Lydia’s house became the first meeting place of the first church in the history of Europe. Of all the churches built over all the centuries — No

A thought by John Ortberg from his book, The Me I Want to Be (p. 82). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) It seems that we may have some confusion on the matter of desires. John says, “God made you with desires, and he wants you to desire him most of all — but not only to desire him. Part of trying softer is allowing what we naturally desire around us to lead us back to God. There is a pattern to your desires — certain activities, sensations, people, and thoughts that wake up the ‘got-to-have’ response in you. Those desires are God’s gift to you. They are part of the you God wants you to be.” John goes on, “When people enjoy what God has created, his heart is pleased. However, many people think, If I want to be spiritual, I have to avoid sin, and the best way to avoid sin would be to just do away with desire altogether.   If I just didn’t want sex or money or food or success, I would be really spiritual because the

A thought by John Ortberg from his book, The Me I Want to Be (p. 81). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) And that is a very good thing! John says, “‘Should’ is a kind of auxiliary engine. It is necessary to have this, and sometimes I must do things simply because I should. But if I am running in a marathon, it doesn’t matter at mile marker twenty-three whether I think I should finish. I will finish because I want to finish. ‘Want’ will eventually wear down ‘should.’ “Likewise, spiritual growth doesn’t mean a life of doing what I should do instead of what I want to do. It means coming to want to do what I should do… when people come to understand how good God is, they want him. They don’t just love him. They like him. “We might look at it this way: When we tell people they ought to do something, we can take that ‘ought’ in two ways — the ought of obligation and the ough t of opportunity. T