When I was growing up I went to a church camp and the theme was “in the world, not of the world” and the whole week was centered around ridding ourselves of all that is worldly in our lives.
So naturally I came home fired up and started throwing away all my “worldly” things. CDs and guitar magazines, everything that had an appearance of the world was satanic and must go in the trash. As you might guess a few weeks later, when the fire had dimmed a bit I regretted throwing so much stuff away and still had a desire to have all those things. I may have rid myself of the things and in doing so built a hedge around myself, but the desire and the habit still remained. “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.” Colossians 2:23.
Let me give you a positive example of something similar that happened much later in my life than my previous example. This is a personal example so please don’t read this as a prescription for you, this is simply to illustrate my point. Presently my family doesn’t own a TV and I have no desire to own a TV. How did you cut the cable and break loose from the Satan box you may ask? Kidding. We did it not by waking up one day and throwing away our TV and feeling much better about ourselves having thrown in the trash that disgusting portal into hell. Again, joking.
We did it by replacing those desires to sit in front of the TV and watch something with what we felt was something better. We read more and played music more. We pushed our kids into other interests like the Rubik’s cube, drawing, gardening, painting and instruments. We curbed our desire for one thing, not by trying to mortify that desire for it would not have worked, but by replacing the desire with something that we felt was better.
It didn’t take long for those desires to change. Our TV sat upstairs hanging on the wall for the better part of a year and never got turned on until we finally sold it. We could have at any time gone up and turned it on, it was there. No hedge was built around it, we didn’t throw it away, didn’t make a big deal about it, just desired other things and it was slowly forgotten about. We still enjoy watching movies as a family, and I am not against TV but I hope you see my point in how desires must be changed.
It’s much like the old hymn we often sing “and the things of Earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.” Our desires of the flesh will grow strangely dim when we refocus our desires on the will of God.
All of our worldly desires are passing away. In fact, in Christ they have already been defeated. If you have been born again by the spirit, your old self and all its desires were put to death and you were resurrected as a new man and a new woman with new desires.
But I still struggle, you say. Yes, but these struggles are passing away. The sin of this present age is passing away as we draw nearer and nearer to the return of Christ. Those desires that you still have are not you, that is the sin that is still present but it isn’t you. You are now Christ’s, bound by him and his will. And God’s will for you is to simply trust in our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. He is good enough for you to trust him completely for your salvation, and He is good enough for you to trust him completely for the sanctification of your desires. Set your desires upon pleasing him and upon following him.
There is a Latin Phrase “Coram Deo” that means “in the presence of God.” This is the answer to the question of how one may overcome their worldly desires. You must set your affections moment by moment, in the presence of God, under the authority of God and to the glory of God. This is how we redeem our desires. Stop throwing away your TVs and burning your guitar magazines. Instead, in every instance seek to know our Lord, to please our Lord and to serve our Lord.
Set your affections and desire on the things above, on the eternal things. Replace those sinful desires with God honoring Christ exalting desires. This is how we live rightly. I promise you, because the Lord has promised us, that when we draw near to him in this way he will draw near to us. And when our savior draws near, worldliness fades and is forgotten. Because, dear reader, who could desire the world when in the presence of our beautiful savior.
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