Affections Only for Jesus

9/21/1995

I do want to back up a little bit, something that I missed earlier I was mentioning about specific areas to consider. I talked about attitudes towards God, attitudes about yourself. One that I missed in here that’s a real obvious one is the appetites of the flesh. Really obvious to consider that one. Craving after food - your thought life usually has a lot to with that. Craving sleep, letting tiredness drive you. Your body feeling worn out – the whole sleep thing and craving that. Craving appreciation, wanting to be noticed, wanting to be looked up to, somehow having our egos stroked and built up in some way. And those would be fleshly things that…a few of them. If you guys can think of a few more, you can mention them if they come to mind. But those are some of the real obvious ones that we run into every day. Things like that. Craving entertainment, wanting to be entertained, wanting to be somehow lulled and have kind of a nice time where I’m being entertained and can kinda space out and check out for awhile and just take it easy and that kind of thing.

Material things; being driven by what we look like, wanting to look appealing to other people in some way, either our face, or our bodies or wanting to have nice clothing, wanting to have nice things, craving after buying food or buying this or that, getting the latest upgrade on your computer. There are certain things like that, that can be the cravings of the flesh, the appetites of the flesh that would be good to consider, too. And the thought that I had about that was that I’m devoted to, to have a heart that nothing will vie for my affections, nothing will vie for my affections that belong to Jesus alone. Nothing will vie for my affections that belong only to Jesus. My affections, all of the affection that I can give, the things I long for, what I desire, it all belongs to Jesus. It’s meant to be for Him and Him only. That’s what all of my being, my soul, spirit, mind, body, strength – everything of my affections and my desires are meant to be for Jesus alone and I will not let anything vie for that.

There will be things that will try to vie for that and take that away to get those affections on other things. You will have temptations to have your affections divided into other areas for sure. But to have an intent that you just want nothing but Jesus alone and to have your affections in what His purposes are. To really be in love with Him, to care about Him, to love Him, to really care about Him. Did you ever think of it that way? How do you think Jesus felt about that? Jesus, how did you feel about that thing that just happened? The thing I just did? The joyful thing or the sad thing. How do you feel, Jesus? Does anybody ever ask you how you feel about something? Will I ask you how you felt about that particular thing I did?

Yeah, my sin hurt me, and I can cry for that reason, but agape sorrow takes you to a place where you’re sorry because you hurt Him, you’re thinking about what you did to Him, not about how you got ripped off. But did you ever just ask Him that, ya know, those kinds of things where you’re considering what He wants and what makes Him happy. Your affections are honestly just set on Jesus alone. And you are not going to let other things steal your affections. And there will be things that will beat against you, that will pound at your door in different times.

Somehow we can get in the mindset that I’ll be in a better position to seek God if I would eat first or if I were to sleep first. Well, isn’t that a silly thought! Because Jesus is meant to get us through those times.

There will definitely be all kinds of things that, reasons why we should eat that thing. There will be all sorts of justifications for sleeping longer, or...But you just have to have a clear mind that this is going to require some sacrifice. But it’s good. It really is a good thing. God wants to meet us there, and there is a real blessing in it when we choose to turn away from the appetites that want to drive us.