What Do You Want?

Taken from My Utmost For His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

"Do you seek great things for yourself?" (Jeremiah 45:5)

Are you seeking great things for yourself, instead of seeking to be a great person? God wants you to be in a much closer relationship--He wants you to get to know Him. Even some large thing we want is only incidental. There is nothing easier than getting into the right relationship with God, unless it is not God you seek, but only what He can give you.

If you have only come as far as asking God for things, you have never come to the point of understanding the least bit of what surrender really means. You have become a Christian based on your own terms. You protest, saying, "I asked God for the Holy Spirit, but He didn't give me the rest and peace I expected." And instantly God puts His finger on the reason--you are not seeking the Lord at all; you are seeking something for yourself. Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you..." (Matthew 7:7). Ask God for what you want and do not be concerned about asking for the wrong thing, because as you draw ever closer to Him, you will cease asking for things altogether. "Your Father knows the things you need of before you ask Him" (Matthew 6:8). Then why should you ask? So that you may get to know Him.

Are you seeking great things for yourself? Have you said, "Oh, Lord, completely fill me with your Holy Spirit"? If God does not, it is because you are not totally surrendered to Him; there is something you still refuse to do. Are you prepared to ask yourself what is it you want from God and why you want it? God always ignores your present level of completeness in favor of your ultimate future completeness. He is not concerned about making you blessed and happy right now, buy He's continually working out His ultimate perfection for you--"...that they may be one just as We are one..." (John 17:22).