“What do you want?”  How many times have you asked that question of others?  Better still, how many times have you answered that question, either from others or even to yourself?  Our society today is driven by the idea of wants and we can certainly get caught up in them.  Some of our wants are quite valid but each is often centered on pleasing or serving self.  Have you ever considered what God wants?  If we “want” to serve Him we would do well to discover what it is that He wants.

When we come to know and understand God we will first see His purity and holiness.  Because He is pure and holy, we of sinful (oh, yes, we are) flesh cannot enter His presence.  God simply cannot be aligned with sin or those caught up in it.  As we strive to know His wants we understand that He wants to see that condition (sin) done away with.  That has been accomplished by the sacrifice of Jesus, God’s own Son on the cross of Calvary.  His body and shed blood has made possible our reconciliation with God because Jesus has accepted and received the punishment for our sins.  Looking at the great cost involved we know that God “wants” us to be cleansed.  We can approach Him no other way.  That cleansing will occur when we obediently, from the heart, submit to the will of God and are immersed for the remission of our sins.

That response doesn’t come without other “wants” of God.  God wants us to be “convicted” of our sinful condition.  God wants us to confess our sinful condition.  As we realize what we are and what we need we will give God what He wants and that is ourselves.  With the Word of God as our guide we can know all of what God wants and begin to give Him those things as soon as we possibly can. 

Keep giving God what He wants if you have been already and if you haven’t been, start today, won’t you!  When someone asks you in the future, “What do you want?”  I hope you tell them, “I want what the Lord wants and to serve Him and Him alone.”

Copyright © 2004, Nolan P. Rutter