"_I am my beloved's, and his desire is towards me._" If we would know
God's desire for us we have only to study the Scriptures, and if we
should fulfill his desires we would have an experience of heaven upon
earth.
First: It is his desire that we should be holy. Ephesians 1:4,
"According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love."
Holiness in not sinlessness, it is to the spiritual nature what health
is to the physical life. In other words, God desires that we should be
spiritually healthy, and this we cannot be with secret sins in our
lives.
Second: It is his desire that we should be sanctified. 1 Thessalonians
4:3, "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye
should abstain from fornication."
Sanctification is not sinlessness, it is separation. It is absolutely
useless to think of pleasing God if we are in touch with the world in
any way, for since the days of the crucifixion it has been against him.
Third: It is his desire that we should present ourselves unto him in
the sense above suggested--namely, that we should take our hands off
from ourselves and allow him to direct and to control his own
possession. Romans 12:1-2, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not
conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect,
will of God." Romans 6:13, "Neither yield ye your members as
instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God,
as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments
of righteousness unto God." In these expressions the tense of the verb
indicates that the action is to be definite and that it is to be once
and for all. He has certain desires for us also expressed in the
seventeenth chapter of John.
First: He desires that we should have joy. Joy is better than
happiness; happiness depends upon our surroundings and circumstances,
joy has nothing to do with these but rather is the result of centering
our affections upon him.
Second: He desires that we should be one with him. By this I am sure
he means that we should be one in our thought of sin, one in our desire
for holiness, one in our efforts to reach the unsaved, and one in our
longing in all things to be pure and true and good.
Third: He desires to make us the object of his love. In this
seventeenth chapter of John he tells us that the same love which he had
for his son he has for those of us who are in his Son. Thank God for
this. If he must open the windows of heaven to speak forth his love
for that Son and then has the same for us, oh, what joy it is to be a
Christian!