July 21, 2026 -- Proverbs 13:19 -- What is your sweetest desire?

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

19  A desire fulfilled is sweet to the soul,
but to turn away from evil is an abomination to fools. Proverbs 13:19
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2025).
 
Jesus declared, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Jesus Himself modeled self-denial. He left His throne in heaven, walked the earth as a man, and turned away from every evil, every temptation, eschewing any wicked path. Fools mock such self-denial. The self-interested won’t keep the path of such obedience—they’d rather be enslaved to the dictates of the world and slaves to their own flesh.
 
What drove Jesus? To discover this, according to Hebrews, we are “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). Even the depths of torment He’d endure at the cross paled in comparison with His desire to be next to His Father in heaven. The Father loves the Son and the Spirit, the Son loves the Spirit and the Father, and the Spirit loves the Father and the Son. Jesus desired such perfect communion in the unity of the Being of God. While on earth, in the flesh, He pursued God with all He had.
 
Jesus’ desire is to please the Father. It motivated Him. Kept Him on track pursuing the Father’s good pleasure, even when the Devil threw at Him the most delectable of temptations. Even when Jesus had no where to lay His head, He desired to be praying to, worshipping, living for the Father. That is the desire fulfilled which is sweet to the soul. G. K. Chesterton famously stated, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." As I’ve heard it: Christianity has not been tried and found hard, it has been found hard and left untried. Look how Hebrews states it (I’ll wait while you re-read it in the passage already quoted. Seriously, read it again.) Jesus was all in. 100% committed to His Father, so the inevitable hardships of life did not throw Him off. He expected these. Prepared for these by being steeped in the Word. More that that, He resisted every temptation to any evil because He was desiring the sweetness of fellowship with His Father. He desired the sweetness of community with His Father; sweetness that would be produced through the strenuous, unrelenting pursuit of such fellowship through-out His life.
 
Think about the things you’ve spent a lot of money pursuing. Alcohol. Sex. Attention. Love. Retirement. A cottage. The inevitable experience is that anything pursued and gained, will never satisfy. It produces a greater drive for more, which reveals even greater emptiness and less time in life to fulfill bottomless, hollow, dreams. Those who through Jesus pursue deep intimacy with the Father in heaven will find their desire fulfilled, and re-filled, overflowing, full-measure and sweet to the soul.
 
Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Amen
(prayer is quotation of Psalm 73:25-26 ESV)
 
https://youtu.be/XIpnW3rtRQ4?si=MY8p5_RmRb2kDzSR Sons of Korah — Psalm 73

 

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