Jonathan Chandler

If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.

Psalm 119:92

People do what they want to do. Whatever footnotes one adds to action, it always boils down to our desires. I know it is dangerous to say that we do what we want–it can get quite complicated to sort things out at times. When a given situation seems to go against what I am saying it is normally due to competing desires. Say a man robs a bank because his wife is being held at gun point. He does not want to rob the bank, but he does want to save his wife. He has competing desires, and, because he is a loving husband, his desire to save his wife wins out. I know there are much uglier and painful situations that I could point to–such as physical and mental abuse–that would push my point to the brink. However, I believe that in the end our greatest desire at present wins out and we act accordingly–even if such action is only desirable when compared to something far more evil. That is why guarding our heart, the root of our desires, is so important (see Prov. 4:22)

Now if what I’m saying is correct then it has great implication on sinning–we sin because we want to. This is a nauseating thing for the Christian. On the one had, he has tasted the goodness of the Lord; on the other, he still finds himself wanting to sin. In the battle for purity we often address our sinful actions head on, wrongfully thinking that if we stop the action long enough the desire will go away. But if my first point is true, that we do what we want, then this approach goes about things the wrong way. Doing a sinful action less will not likely make you desire it less, although it may temporarily numb the desire. I have seen this played out in my life too many times to recount. I stopped a sinful action for months, in some cases years, and thought I was done with it. In the end, to my dismay, I found the desire was lurking and constantly seeking an opportunity to express itself. Keeping my distance from it did not mean it was keeping its distance from me.

What is sure is that if you desire an action less you will find yourself doing to less. If you do not like chocolate you do not eat it. If you do not like a particular sin you will most likely not commit it. I think that is what the Psalmist is getting at in Psalm 119:92. If the law had not been his delight he would have perished in his state of misery. His delight in the Lord and in the Lord’s truth saved him. This gets to the heart of the matter for most of us. How is it that we kill sinful desires? The answer: fight desire with delight. Listen to the words of seventeenth century Puritan Archbishop Robert Leighton:

The real reason why we remain servants of these evil desires is that we are still strangers to God’s love and to those pure pleasures that are in him. [The Crossway Classic Commentaries, 1 & 2 Peter. Crossway Books (Wheaton, Il), 111.]

There is great wisdom in what Leighton says. Our desire for sin stems from our failure to delight in God. You kill a desire by finding something or someone in whom you have greater delight. For the Christian this greater delight is Christ. The more we find ourselves delighting in Christ the less we will desire sin. The battle for righteousness is not an act of drudgery–putting off things that you desperately want. No, it is the pursuit of the pure pleasures of Christ. God calls us to fight our sinful desire with joy. What a great gift!