How do we overcome our tendency to chase after personal desires more than we chase after God?
James says we must submit to God and resist the devil. Come near to God and he’ll come near to us. Humble ourselves.
In Romans 8:7, Paul told us that the sinful mind is hostile to God because it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.
We must turn our minds and then surrender ourselves, completely.
So often though, we halfheartedly surrender ourselves. We don’t turn out minds. We keep this little desire or that little want back to ourselves thinking it doesn’t hurt. But it does, because that little desire or want grows.
No, we have to surrender ourselves completely. Come back to God and He will come back to us. I asked my congregations to read the following verses often over the next days, weeks, months...I ask anyone who wants a closer relationship with God to do the same. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart (Jer. 24:7). I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them (Jer. 32:39). I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh (Ezek. 11:19). I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws (Ezek. 36:26–27).