Lust and Tassels – Part 1: When desires disturb the Lordship of Jesus in your life…

“Revenge, lust, ambition, pride, and self-will are too often exalted as the gods of man’s idolatry; while holiness, peace, contentment, and humility are viewed as unworthy of a serious thought.” – Charles Spurgeon

“Lust – that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.” – Famous author

In the previous post, “Listen!!…are you hard of hearing or have you been eating mixed seed”, it was interesting to see how the Israelites were influenced by the “mixed multitudes” (non-Israelite mixed group of people who followed the Israelites out of Egypt, pointing to a recurring source of complaints and trouble in the camp). Let’s look at that verse again….

Num.11:4-6 ““Now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving; so the children of Israel also wept again and said: “Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!””

They were saying this even though God gave them a very clear and solid promise earlier in Exodus…

Ex. 3:8 “So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.”

This is the same group of people who witnessed the Red Sea part, walked through it, saw God leading them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, saw God’s provision for them through manna and water, etc. And now they are complaining after listening to the mixed multitudes instead of focusing on the promise of God.

Okey, so now that we have stated the obvious…what happened next? God heard their outcry for meat. He became “exceedingly angry” (“Why?”, you ask. Well, wait for it. You will see) and told Moses to tell the Israelites to consecrate themselves for the next day when they will eat meat. That they will eat meat for a month until “it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have despised the Lord who is among you, and have wept before Him saying, “Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?”.

Then God sent many quail, “about two cubits above the ground” and the people gathered them all day and all night. “But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was aroused against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague. So he called the name of that place Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had yielded to craving.”

Here’s the interesting part: Kibroth Hattaavah means “graves of lust”. The issue here was not their request for meat, it was lust. They did not ask. They complained and they lusted. What is lust? The translation for lust in Hebrew is “a strong desire, desirous, covet, incline, be greedy”. Remember, God sees the heart of man! This is when your strong desire makes you anxious, controls your thoughts and disturbs the Lordship of Jesus in your life – you just HAVE to have this thing/person/experience/etc.  

God reminded me how easily we listen to the “mixed multitudes” and forget our promises from God. We shift our focus off God,
we think the grass now looks greener on the other side and we start lusting after the neighbors’ cow – completely forgetting that owning a cow also involves regular cleaning up of poop! While God had greater plans for us if only we were a bit more patient. We forget that in actual fact “life in abundance”, “exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think”, “good plans, plans to prosper and not to harm you” etc etc etc. is God’s heart for us! The Bible is full of it! How do we access this? Our strongest desire should be after God! When anything disturbs the Lordship of Jesus in your life – identify it, repent and bury it immediately. It is NOT WORTH IT! GOD IS!! He will overcome – you only need to choose Him and He will do the rest.

And then…

Ps.37:4 “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

“We are made for God and unquieted is our soul until it rests in God.” – Augustine

My prayer for you as your read this (in the words of Roland Baker) “that you seek God to the extent that you are dissatisfied with all these things in your life and with the world. Dissatisfaction makes you seek God. That’s how you fall in love with Him! You realize there is NOTHING like Him!” May your heart cry be like David in Psalm 74:25 “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

Be sure to read Part 2 of this post (soon to follow;) ) to see what God showed me next…