Taking every thought captive for obedience to Christ (2 Corinthians 10.5)

The Question
What does God want most of all for you (2)?
God wants something for you, something which is most important to Him, and which therefore should be regarded as most important for us. He longs for us to know Him, and He offers this great gift freely to every human being, as that which He most of all desires for us, and which is above all, of most benefit to us.

Gifts are always more meaningful when we know the one who gives them. A gift from one we love, whom we highly esteem, or whose acknowledgement or company we cherish, will mean more to us, and be received more eagerly and regarded more dearly, than gifts bestowed by strangers, those more distant from us, or whom we hold in little or no regard.

So when we propose the idea that God has something for you, a gift which He most longs to bestow, and which is above any other gift you might imagine, whether or not you receive and cherish that gift will depend on your understanding of God. If you regard Him as distant, aloof, stern, unsympathetic, and something of a cosmic spoil-sport, then you are not likely to regard the gifts He proffers with much interest.

On the other hand, if you know God as the very epitome, the pinnacle, the sum, substance, and source of all beauty, goodness, and truth, and if you understand His gifts as being extended to us out of His infinite love and concern, you may well consider that what He wants most of all for you is something you should also want above all else for yourself.

In considering the matter of what God wants most of all for you, it will be important to gain as true an understanding of God as possible, so that you might be open to receiving that which He intends for you though it appear to be ever so strange, unlikely, or impossible to possess – and even though it run contrary to your sense of what’s most important in life. If God is, and if He is Who the Bible describes Him as being, then nothing should hinder you from reaching out eagerly to receive whatever He offers.

What can we say about God that might induce us to want to receive that which He wants most of all for us?

First, that He exists – a point we need not prove. Everyone knows God exists. All people are created in the image of God, so that a seed of Godness is woven into the very fabric of our being. We cannot deny this, even though we may deny, reject, or refuse to believe in the God of the Bible. Turn away from the God of Scripture, and human beings will simply latch on to some other notion or vision or idea of the Ultimate, and devote themselves to it as though it were the thing most beautiful, good, and true to possess. The sense of Godness within us strains to be realized, and though we seek to bridle it toward things other than the one, true God, it will chafe and bolt and rear and ever incline toward its true Creator and Master.

Animals don’t live this way. People do. We have been created to know God, the God of Scripture. And if we will not know Him, we will seek some substitute, some ideal or aspiration, some notion of that which is above all in our best interests, and pursue this with all our strength, as if to acquire and possess that, whatever it may be, would be the very fulfillment of our existence.

Of course, it will not fulfill; and a large measure of the dissonance, dissatisfaction, and disappointment which troubles the hearts of many is due to the fact that they are seeking to satisfy their soul’s longing for God with the false deities and feeble promises of their own best thinking about what is beautiful, good, and true. Only knowing and possessing – rather, being possessed by – the God of Scripture can satisfy that deep longing within us for knowing and participating in that which is supremely beautiful, good, and true.

God exists, and He is personal and therefore, knowable. And what God wants most of all for you is to know Him asHe exists – not as you suppose Him to exist – in the depths of His personal love for you, and to experience and enjoy His beauty, goodness, and truth, all the time, with ever-increasing satisfaction – and forever.

God is all beauty. He is the supreme essence of that which brings delight without selfishness, guilt, fear, or shame. He satisfies all our need for spiritual, personal, aesthetic, intellectual, relational, and existential joy and pleasure. All notions of beauty, be they ever so skewed, are faint remembrances of a longing for that which we have never fully known, but can neither deny nor ignore. All works of beauty, crafted by human hands or shining out at us from the creation, are manifestations and tokens of the Godness in human souls and the world. Human beings strive for beauty, to know beauty, enjoy beauty, make beauty, and even to embody it. And while our views of beauty often fall prey to merely subjective notions, and thus miss the true mark of beauty, still, the longingfor beauty, indeed, the need for it every human expresses, is a need and longing for God, Who is supremely beautiful.

As Humberto Eco eloquently explained in his book History of Beauty, there has never been a culture without a sense of and longing for beauty. And though our ideas of beauty spread across a broad spectrum, still the idea of beauty, and the desire to know and experience beauty, are common human experiences.

To know God is to know beauty. True and complete beauty. To commune with God is to enter into beauty, a depth and power of beauty that floods the corridors of our soul with sensations of joy and pleasure that we may freely delight in and share; for there is nothing of self, guilt, or shame attached to the experience of the beauty we may know when we know God.

And what God wants mostof all for you to is to know Him in all His beauty.

We’ll consider the goodness of God as we continue looking at the question of what God wants most of all for you. For now, let’s review the week of offerings at The Fellowship of Ailbe website, just in case you missed anything.

Weekly Review
I encourage you, if you have not already, to subscribe to our Scriptorium and ReVision newsletters. Each morning Scriptorium brings you studies in God’s Word, using questions and meditations to guide you into a deeper understanding of Him and His will. We are about to finish our studies in the book of Acts, after which we will begin a panoramic overview of Scripture, following the unfolding of God’s covenant throughout. You can download each week’s daily studies in a free PDF form on Monday of each week.

Our new ReVision series begins next week on The Promise of Prayer. This is the first of a five-part series on prayer. Each day brings you a new installment in the current series, and each week’s daily studies are available in a free downloadable PDF, suitable for personal or group use.

This week our Crosfigell columns called us to follow Paul and Patrick in renouncing everything in order to follow Christ, and urged us to improve our ability to speak God’s truth in love. You can read the installments of this week’s Crosfigell columns by clicking here.

In Thursday’s The Week installment, we considered the role of culture in defining our lives, and called for greater awareness of and sensitivity to the everyday culture in which we are engaged, so that we might glorify God in it.

Saturday’s In the Gates column continues our examination of how the Law of God comes to occupy primacy of place in our soul, in particular, in the conscience. Keeping the Lord’s Day should be a high priority with us, since on this day we are able to practice the love for God and neighbors, and the holiness of Jesus, which we will need throughout the week.

Visit our website and bookstore to discover additional resources and publications to help you in your walk with and work for the Lord. Subscribe to more of our instructional newsletters. Read John Nunnikhoven’s daily Voices Together column. And while you’re at the website, watch the videos introducing our Men’s Prayer Movement and offering you an opportunity to assess the state of your Christian worldview.

T. M. Moore

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