Deny your heart's desires
Time and again. No matter how much a person learns. Many still do not gain a real world perspective on what it means to follow Christ. Another reason why they instead resort to flocking to the churches to follow each other.
If we focus heavily on purifying and protecting our hearts, then the path will be revealed to us more and more. Desire comes from the heart. And our hearts desire the world. We also have the desire to worship. We must practice SELF DENIAL in order to fix the problem of desiring the world. And the more we do this the more our beliefs will change over time. Provided we allow our desire to worship point towards serving GOD. The world is always full of people who have it worse than we do. So we should fully consider that fact. We don't deserve more than anyone else. So we shouldn't live beyond necessity. If we really need something than it should and will be provided. Anything beyond that is an extension that takes from others. Whatever happened to the idea of giving all the extra to those in need? What gives us the right to horde our resources for ourselves when clearly that concept is an abomination to GOD? Your pastor tells you its alright to horde. Is he your savior? Remember the world hates truth. Every place in it promotes lies. Including the churches.
Denying your desires will help to purify your heart. Making room for the Spirit of GOD. There is no room in there for Him if you keep it filled with your own fulfilled desires. A desire can include anything you dont need. Traditions. Material objects. We are taught by this world every day to love the things in it. It sneaks upon us from every direction. And that includes from our relatives and friends. They are lost as well as anyone else. And that is another big reason why we must rely solely upon GOD's principles to guide us. Not simply take the advice of family and friends. Parents are supposed to be the voice for Jesus to their children. Teaching them the principles. Later in life the Spirit will guide them. Until then children should listen to them. That is why GOD told them to honor their parents. To honor parents is to honor GOD. But the world no longer follows this rule. Some people might quickly disagree with this principle, thinking that it would be bad for some children to listen to unfit parents who lead them wrong. The idea of honoring parents is based on the idea that those parents are serving GOD, not the world.
Finally. The journey you take to serve GOD is likely to exclude you from many of the things the world has to offer. Its like watching through a window and seeing children have a party. But you're not invited. The difference between this hypothetical example and reality is that you were invited but chose to not go. To deny yourself, knowing that your heart is always reserved for GOD and not ready to consort with the ways of corruption without being tempted and led around by it. It is not that parties are bad. But whether we are strong enough to be in the world without it invading our hearts. Jesus walked through many corrupt areas of society. He was tempted by them all, the same as us. But He remained unchanged by it. He was immune to it. Not because He was conceived as a sinless man. But because He always practiced self denial, worshiping GOD, and carried the Spirit inside Him better than any other human possibly could. We should allow ourselves to follow His ways and lose our love for this world. Only then can we SHOW love to others through GOD's will, not ours. Yes. It is possible to show love without it driving our hearts sinful desires. We do it in moral principle. We cannot do this alone. We must have GOD's wisdom or we WILL continue to walk the foolish path. An example would be someone who is on their way to work, and running late. They see a car accident up ahead. They know that if they get to work late, they could possibly be fired. So they really DO NOT WANT to stop. But they do without a second thought. Why? Because in principle they did the right thing, according to GOD. Our own security isn't more important than that of someone else. Especially when their security is being threatened right before our very eyes. We step in, even if it puts us in jeopardy. That is an example of showing love without desire. Most people in the world show love WITH desire. Guided by their foolish hearts instead of by the Spirit of GOD.
