Many find themselves praying that God would refine their desires. Maybe this prayer sounds familiar: “I pray, God, that you would shape my desires to reflect your will. I cannot assume that what I want for myself is automatically what you want for me. Deal with my desires! Adjust them! Refine them!”

If you have prayed this kind of prayer, you are not alone. This prayer has been prayed in one form or another countless times as Christians find themselves unable to walk in the simple gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This prayer to have God adjust your desires ends up sounding like a throwaway prayer that conveys no real direction. And that’s because it’s backward to how God works. It’s the cart before the horse. Human desire is an unplanned route, whereas God’s desire is His planned route of covenant faith.

Our desires have already been shaped by our first birth into this world and are deeply rooted in our first history before Christ. Because we trust that first rooting and molding, we are naturally inclined to trust this self-reflection. It is only when God challenges this habit that believers begin to take stock of their hearts and try to shift their desires through prayer.

Prayer is good and responding to grace is good, but what is left undone is not good. Asking God to adjust our desires to His without first learning about His new covenant terms does not uproot harmful traditions of man, nor does it shape Christ within.

God first refines our desire by setting His foundation of truth in the heart. That form of instruction comes from God’s restored apostolic government. God further shapes, refines, and conforms our desires to His in our daily growth cycles, which He designed into His covenant in Jesus to nurture our faith. This is where faith grows and the anointing easily shapes Christ in us.

Although a person can say, “I lay down my desires, Lord” the power for change is not in that confession but rather in God’s grace which is present and active in His tools.

God’s process of shaping, refining and conforming us to Jesus Christ happens when we use the spiritual “things” of Jesus’ covenant. The expression of our faith has to be with the things of Jesus Christ in order to remove ourselves from the equation. The new covenant tools are the things of Jesus Christ that we use to give expression to Him instead of the flesh. Apostle Paul spoke of these “things” in his instruction to the saints in Colosse.

Colossians 3:1-2
¹ If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

² Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

We give expression to Christ through His 9 spiritual tools which is how we demonstrate the good works of our faith. The good works of faith is our labor with these tools: God’s government, His truth, His Spirit, prayer (in tongues), preaching (from government) and prophecy, the gifts, the callings and the manifold graces of God.

God sanctified these tools with the blood of Jesus Christ, making these tools separate from the flesh and equal to Himself so that Jesus Christ exclusively remains the source of empowerment for our faith. God placed the tools of faith in the boundary of the covenant of Jesus Christ so that the only way to access it is by the obedience of faith and to place it outside of the reach of man’s logic and imagination.

God’s new covenant commandment is that Jesus must remain the source of the spiritual works of faith which means that the works of faith must not come from ourselves (the design of our first birth) which is not worthy of God’s glory.

Apostle Paul repeatedly spoke to the saints about their walk of faith, admonishing them to continue to resource these things of Christ. Our worthiness is tied to Jesus’ tools. Our walk with God is tied to Jesus’ tools. Our increase is tied to Jesus’ tools. That’s the fulness of the priesthood of Jesus Christ, which we now experience.

Colossians 1:10
That you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.

Most Christians identify with the desire for each of the things underlined in the verses above.

-I desire to walk worthy to please God
-I desire to be fruitful in every good work
-I desire to increase in the knowledge of God

We can see how easily Christians get caught up in talking about their spiritual desires, but when do those desires become a reality? What happens when worthiness is tied up with desire rather than joined to Jesus’ tools? It remains a promise without the power; and that’s what Satan does. He makes promise by scripture to feed a desire, while setting up barriers to Jesus’ tools.

A common response from believers on the topic of worthiness is that they are not worthy. Songs are sung about the worthiness of Jesus Christ; how He is worthy, but they are not. In this way believers demonstrate their desire to let Jesus stand for them.

Believers desire Jesus to “take the wheel” on worthiness. But this hands-off approach to worthiness means that they also have a hands-off approach to the tools, meaning that they are not using them.

When our faith is not laboring with the tools of Jesus Christ then Jesus is not representing us before God, nor mediating the covenant on our behalf. Desire stands alone and is not met with the power of God.

Even though a believer desires “self” to decrease and Christ to increase, the inevitable happens when neglecting the tools. In the absence of resourcing the divine things of Jesus Christ a person would just default to using the natural (carnal) portions of their first birth to show their service in the form of self-sacrifice, the giving of their time, signature gifts and money.

In the absence of the right tools for faith a person draws from the moral code, signature gifts, the inborn drive of the God-Code, the principle, imagination and the light of the aspiration to work a version of goodness and kindness in charitable giving and mistaking that for what God values to build His kingdom.

Many times, we hear this tired advice: don’t explain God’s plan, just experience it! But explaining what God values is to set order to your faith. Many will agree that we should never add our own value to God’s kingdom, but God’s distinction is that we only value Christ in the same way as He does by using the things He values.

God values Jesus and His sanctified tools which must be at the core of the labor of our faith before divine fruit bearing can take place. Without explaining (setting order) to knowledge, your desire to please God will flow in another direction.

Did you know: Worthiness from God’s perspective is about the competency of our faith. By picking up the tools of Christ He makes our faith competent. We experience the effectual working of the Holy Spirit with these things that affect change in our soul and we reciprocate to God the exact requirement of faith that reflects Jesus Christ. This reciprocation of Christ in knowledge is our true charity that glorifies God and minister to our brethren

By God restoring the tools of the covenant to the church, believers can now actually walk in their holiness, putting away the works of the flesh as they instead use these tools of Christ to perform the works of the covenant which please God.

To be fruitful in every good work means that our good works must yield the fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 2:10
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

The word “good” from God’s perspective means that our works meet His standard for righteousness. The works of our faith are good because they are equal to Christ and that meets God’s standard.

God’s workmanship is first seen in Jesus’ tools and then in the fruits of the Spirit, worked in our souls as we use His tools. Regeneration is the element of Christ that tells us about God’s workmanship that takes place as we daily serve Him with these sanctified things.

Although most Christians would agree that good works are to be spiritual, for the most part they struggle to clearly define that. So, they also struggle to walk that out. This is where the restored government of God comes in to teach you the ropes of your priesthood. God’s restored government teaches you to discern the difference between carnal and spiritual contact points which are directly connected to works.

To teach a little on that difference I would like to quote from the EVA Terms Glossary, page 72

Carnal Contact Points

To create your own standard to give evidence to faith, such as good works of the flesh, the keeping of the ten commandments, the observances of the wafer and wine, foot washings, Jericho marches, song services, prophetic declarations.

The carnal minded man creates his own contact points for faith to give evidence to Christ. He believes that these are acts of faith he can pour his imagination and aspiration into, but they are works of debt, not works of faith. The carnal minded believer uses physical tokens of faith, but God has not sanctified them.

Even as Apostle Paul said, “Touch not, taste not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men,” (Colossians 2:22). Faith needs the sanctified contact points of the new covenant to be living. If faith is joined to carnal works, it is dead because the Spirit will not enter into it.

Because carnal contact points are not sanctified by God, there is no divine contact or divine exchange, no operation of God, no mediation of Jesus Christ, no effectual working power of the Holy Ghost. So then, we see that the natural man is not subject to God, neither indeed can be because God’s seed of truth (knowledge of Christ) cannot germinate in that soil (brute nature).

The natural man views Christ from this carnal perspective, thinking he is looking at Christ, when in truth, he is looking at a reflection of himself in the works of debt he has chosen to represent his faith. His whole perception of Christianity is ruled by this mind-set, which produces its own testimony (fable).

So, even though he quotes the precept of scripture, he restricts God to the flesh and the world does not see Jesus, but rather the boast of the flesh; they see the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.

Reference Verses:
Romans 8:6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

James 2:20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

We can see why an earnest desire exists in the hearts of Christians to back off from the flesh – they don’t want to give expression to the boast of the flesh and they want to be fruitful in God’s kingdom. But this will not happen if carnal contact points remain at the center of the believer’s engagement and expression of faith.

I want to revisit our example of songs about the worthiness of Jesus popularly sung in churches to talk about what happens there.

In the moment of that confession of the worthiness of Christ, expressed in song, a person feels uplifted and they feel like their flesh recedes into the background. But the power of worthiness is not in the words of that acknowledgement. Neither the words of that acknowledgement, nor the song are the works of the covenant but it is one of the things that replaced the works of the covenant which God originally intended for our worship and that counterfeit is part of what God is addressing.

Where passionate words of song were believed to give structure and expression to worshiping God, in reality God restored the covenant knowledge and tools of Jesus Christ to give faith its form of service and worship.

Faith is designed by God to labor in spiritual works and charity (spoken as the fruit of our lips) is the form of the expression of our faith which confirms Christ. Once you walk in covenant with God you will be able to continue on a daily basis to labor with His knowledge and tools, choosing to discern and stand separate from the old way which was to increase by the light of the aspiration.

Some believe that the way to prepare one’s heart to allow God to shape what they desire, is in the works of self-sacrifice like fasting or abstaining.

God is not asking believers to self-sacrifice their favorite things to gain His involvement but rather to allow Jesus to qualify (make competent) their faith by His new covenant terms, knowledge and priesthood. God is calling believers to accept Jesus’ covenant that He established by His sacrifice.

When Christians desire good works it is not so much that they are trying to prove their own worthiness but they are trying to replace the working of iniquity with something that they deem good to deny the flesh its expression.

Self-sacrifice is not the same thing as denying the flesh. We are to deny the works of the flesh which works with the moral code of man to self-correct. By using Jesus’ tools we are working with the things of Jesus to allow the Spirit to bring healing in the soul according to God’s wisdom.

It is not possible for us to diminish the flesh by confession of its weakness. It has never been within man’s ability to separate himself from the world unto God in the sense of being able to remove himself from the working of iniquity.

When a believer yields to grace and makes that initial decision to accept Jesus as their Savior they are showing a willingness and desire to serve. But it cannot stop there. The opportunity of choosing to walk in the fulness of Jesus Christ for the regeneration of our soul is a choice we did not have before this covenant. By entering into this refuge we begin to experience what it is like when God separates us from the working of the world. This separation is in the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that separated death from life.

Grace is the same power that resurrected Jesus Christ and is now present and living in His knowledge and the tools of His covenant so we can walk in that same life-giving power. Remember, Jesus’ death means He bought the new covenant in blood and sealed it in blood so that our repentance and worthiness is now manifested as we walk in these new works of the covenant.

The power to subdue the flesh is the power of grace which we must yield to by accepting and using the things that God has prescribed for us to use. If we say that we cannot be presented before the throne of God unless putting on Christ it means that we are to put on Christ by putting on His tools.