Inordinate Desires

By Matt Watson

John Calvin famously said, “The human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge for idols” (Institutes, 1.11.8). Over and over again Scripture calls out idolatry, both the literal worship of false gods in the form of little gold and silver figurines, but also the more ephemeral idols we create in our hearts. Describing this, Tim Keller says that anything, even a good thing, if it is made into an ultimate thing, it is a bad thing.

Yet, because we are so deceitful, we may trick ourselves into believing we do not worship idols at all because we won’t conceive of them in these terms. “Of course, I don’t worship idols,” one might say, as they reorganize their action figure collection, meticulously weed and seed their lawn, or dress in ceremonial garb and feast during the gladiatorial games of gridiron football. While we need to find and smash the idols in our lives, it can be hard to identify them (see our previous series talking about idols here). An alternative way of diagnosing idolatry is by looking at desires. Desires are an indicator of where our heart is, what we worship, and what are our values.

A New Diagnostic

In his book Pursuing Peace: A Christian Guide to Handling Our Conflict, biblical counselor and seminary professor Robert Jones likes to imagine a throne placed on your heart. There is only one that should occupy that throne: Jesus. Below the throne are our various desires: desires for a spouse, for children, for a job, for a house, and literally anything else we can want. When one of those desires begins to preoccupy us, where we obsess over it and devote our time, energy, and money to it, then it begins to grow legs, climbs up to the throne, and tries to usurp Jesus from his rightful place by becoming a demand. In this way the desire becomes inordinate, or out of its proper order. Therefore, rightfully ordered desires are those that are submitted under Christ.

Jones says, “The first step is to recognize which specific desire tends to ascend to your throne, become a demand, and control you – and to catch it when it starts this ascent. Our goal is to become increasingly ‘heart smart’ – to seize the first occasion of a rising desire and to call it what it is. The three tests … might help you: (1) Does it consume my thoughts? (2) Do I sin to get it? (3) Do I sin when I don’t get it?” (Jones, 66).

Take wanting a spouse, for example. The Bible affirms that is a good thing (Prov 18:22), but when it becomes the only thing we think about, not only do we open ourselves up to certain sin, but we also make Jesus second to the false hope that a spouse will complete us and bring us ultimate joy. The desire gets out of order, becomes a demand, and thus it indicates an idol that we are using to replace Jesus. Similarly, it is a good thing to work hard at a job and succeed in that work. But when that desire becomes inordinate and we obsess over promotions, projects, how we are perceived at work, and then neglect our family, that desire shows that success at our job is more important than being found faithful in Jesus.

We see this in Genesis with the Patriarchs. Abraham wanted to stay safe but did so by sacrificing his wife’s virtue by lying about her and telling dangerous would-be suitors that she was his sister, twice (Gen 12 and 20). Isaac wanted to bless his favorite son Esau, but that was counter to the will of God who had chosen the younger brother Jacob (Gen 25). Rebekah wanted Jacob to rightfully get the blessing but went about it in an evil and deceitful way (Gen 27). Safety is a good thing, as are wanting to bless your children, but these examples show that they sinned to get what they wanted rather than trusting in God, and thus their demanding desires became the thing they worshipped instead of God.

Author Rod Dreher says, “If seeing the face of God, and becoming Christ-like in the process, is our greatest desire, then we must stay focused on that ultimate goal. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the pilgrim protagonist (also named Dante) learns that sin is disordered love. The source of all disorder is loving finite things more than the infinite God. Even loving good things, like family and country, can be a source of damnation if one loves them more than one loves God and seeks fulfillment in those things rather than in the creator of those things” (Dreher, 266).

He then says the character’s former love, representative of beauty, goodness, and truth, tells him he is a fool because all the things he loved in her were to point him to something greater, the source of all goodness.

The Right Treatment for a Case of Inordinate Desires

So now that we have identified yet again how much more sinful we really are than what we previously thought, what do we do about it? How do we wrestle down the demands of our desires and subordinate them under our Savior?

Jones says the next steps are to repent of letting desire rule; refocus on God and his grace, provisions, and promises; and to replace sinful responses with Christlike graces (Jones, 67-73). As with any sin, we must repent by turning from it and turning back to God. Instead of focusing on the attractive, but false hopes of our inordinate desires, we focus on the promises and character of God who never lies. And lastly, we must replace the worship of these idols with the worship of responding to Christ’s grace.

On this side of heaven, while we still live in the flesh, the corrupted furnaces of our hearts will continue to smith idols that Satan will use to steal, kill, and destroy us. But we worship a King who has conquered sin and Satan. Cast your hopes upon the cross of Christ and the empty tomb, and then do that over and over again. In this way we smash our heart-idols and wrestle our inordinate desires, killing sin before it kills us.

For Further Reading

Dreher, Rod. The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation. New York, Penguin Random House, 2017.

Jones, Robert D. Pursuing Peace: A Christian Guide to Handling Our Conflicts. Wheaton, Crossway, 2012.

Keller, Timothy. Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters. New York, Riverhead Books, 2009.