Ask whatever you want…God will do it

Found on the internet recently:

“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

Is that what that means?  And what about Jesus’ words in John 15?  “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (v. 7).

Many years ago I was dialoguing with a college student about the principles in these verses and the summary statement often attributed to Augustine, “love God and do what you will,” and she said, “No!!!  You don’t know what I want.  If I do what I want and get what I want, I’ll get drunk every weekend…”

To which I responded, “you’re only listening to half of the statement.  The first half qualifies the second.”  Delight yourself in the Lord (Ps. 37:4) and when He is the great object of your affections and desires, then the things you want will be in accordance with His moral will and then you will be satisfied with all He gives you.  If you live in Him and are obedient to Him (Jn. 15:7), then you can ask whatever you want because whatever you want will come out of your obedience and submission to Him and be for His glory and not your own self-indulgent pleasures and desires and in accordance with His will and not your own, and then He will do it.  Love God — be passionate for Him and consumed with Him above all other things (Augustine) and then you can do whatever you want because all you want is to be conformed to Him and to honor Him.

The emphasis in all these statements is not “do what you want,” but “desire God, live with Christ, love and honor God and live for His glory, and then your heart will be increasingly conformed to Him so that whatever you want and do will be for Him.”  Then (and only then), do what you want.