A perpetual human desire that every person must change …

If you examine humanity from the very first human beings created, down through history to all of us today, there’s a nagging problem with our desires and attitude that persists, but scripture teaches must change.

Okay, maybe there’s more than one.

But here’s the biggie – our insisting on living life on our own terms.

We see it in the first two humans formed by God:

“The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too,” Genesis 3:6.

To choose to pursue what she desired for herself rather than do as God said, Eve, with her complicit husband, tried to insist on living life on their terms.

Ancient Israel was famous for this. Almost immediately after being delivered from slavery in Egypt by the powerful deliverance provided directly from God, they began to complain. Things just weren’t how they wanted them to be. God just wasn’t what they wanted Him to be. Even after the ground opened and swallowed up some who complained (see Numbers 16), and fire from God destroyed some of the ring leaders of the discontent (Numbers 16:35), the people still had the nerve to complain. That’s because they wanted life on their terms — they wanted what they wanted, when they wanted it, how they wanted it.

The commander of the king of Aram’s army was a valiant leader by the name of Naaman. But he had a serious problem — he suffered from leprosy. He very nearly missed the opportunity to be miraculously healed of the dreaded disease because he didn’t like the way the prophet Elisha didn’t handle the situation the way he expected it to be handled:

“But Naaman became angry and stalked away. ‘I thought he would certainly come out to meet me!’ he said. ‘I expected him to wave his hand over the leprosy and call on the name of the Lord his God and heal me!'” 2 Kings 5:11 — you can read the whole story in that chapter. The point is that Naaman, like the rest of us, wanted even miraculous healing to be done by his terms!

Don’t forget Jonah, who preferred God just destroy the people of Nineveh and not even bother giving them any opportunity to repent. In an attempt to have things his way, Jonah ran in the opposite direction God pointed him in. You know the rest of the story (which you can read in the book of Jonah).

In the New Testament, Ananias and Sapphira were members of the first church. They wanted to keep for themselves as much of their profits from selling some property as they could, but they also wanted to portray an image of being generous, so they lied about how much they made from the sale. It was an attempt to live life on their terms, an attitude for which God immediately struck them both dead (see Acts 5).

This persistent problem of humanity insisting on living life on our own terms is something Jesus spoke to directly and clearly. Take, for example, this “If/Must” statement:

“Then he said to the crowd, ‘If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me,'” Luke 9:23.

Jesus was so serious about humanity making this change that He described it to the Jewish religious leader, Nicodemus, like this:

“Jesus replied, ‘I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God,'” John 3:3.

A resounding message from scripture is that, to be a disciple of Jesus — to be an adopted child of God — we must surrender this insistent desire to live life on our own terms, do a complete about face, and surrender the entirety of ourselves to God, His will for us, and the reign of Jesus Christ as the new Lord of our lives. In fact, accomplishing exactly that is the transforming work God immediately begins when we believe on His Son as Savior AND Lord:

“For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him,” Philippians 2:13.

Have you made the change?

Or do you still try to live life on your own terms?

Scotty