 Today, I titled my message called, What Do You Want? Turn to your neighbor and ask him, What Do You Want? Let's read from Luke chapter 18 verse 35 and we're just going to read this story. As Jesus, so it's Luke chapter 18 verse 35, As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. He called out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Those who led by the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me. Jesus stopped and ordered the men to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, What Do You Want Me To Do For You? What I want to see, he replied. Verse 42, Jesus said to him, Receive your sight, your faith has healed you. Immediately, he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. What Do You Want Me To Do For You? I think it's almost like, forgive me for this phrase, it's almost like a stupid question. You know, you got this blind man, he's begging, you know, Son of David, have mercy on me. And then you ask him, Hey, what do you want me to do for you? Well, don't you kind of see it's obvious? But yet Jesus takes his time to ask him, What Do You Want From Me? So keep that on the back of your mind. And Jesus, he died on the cross for all the blessings of God to be available for us. He brought us salvation. The word salvation is sozo, which includes healing, deliverance, breakthrough, blessing and salvation for our soul. I mean, it includes the whole package. He died on the cross to give us that salvation, not only salvation of our soul, but all the heavenly blessings that Father has in store for us, He made it available. He gives us to us freely. The question is, how much of it do you want to manifest in your life? What do you want to see Jesus do in your life for you? See, because we serve God, there's a good God. He desires good things for us. At Jeremiah 33 and 3, he says, Ask me and I'll give you and I'll show you great and mighty things, the things you haven't seen. Many other scriptures throughout the Bible, he encourages to ask us and he says, I'm willing and I'm ready to give you whatever you ask. He is ready to do good things in our life. The question is, what do we want him to do in our life? What do you desire? What are you passionate about? What do you want him to do in your life? Let's go back into the life of Israel. God promised them a land of milk and honey. And he said, listen, if you, he said that I have the, I have a land of milk and honey for you and I have this land for you. He told them how much land he asked for them and he said, you know, 400 years is going to pass. You're going to come out and you're going to conquer all this land. But 400 years come by and they're still in slavery. Not until they started crying out and they started asking and they started desiring. They started wanting to leave the slavery that God actually takes them out. So they go and they leave, they go through the wilderness. They come, they go through the challenges, Pharaoh is chasing them, finally Pharaoh dies in the Red Sea. They come out rejoicing. And now they go and send spies into the promised land to see what the promised land holds. If it's true what God promised them, sure enough, it is true. But there are challenges and they don't, and they chicken out. They don't go after what God has for them. Their desire is not strong enough to overcome the fear, overcome the giants, overcome the strong walls and they die in the wilderness. Fast forward 40 years, their children, they go into the promised land and they fast forward in some more time in their history of conquering things. They only conquer a small portion of a promised land that God has promised them and they settle for that and didn't go conquer any further. From this we can learn one lesson for us is that it's not what God desires for you that will manifest in your life, but it is what you desire Him to do in your life and how much you desire it, how much you long for it, how much you seek it, how much you pursue it, your desire and the greatness of your desire will determine what you will have in your life. God's desire in your life, because God, He can give you, He has ability to do anything in everything. It is what you desire Him to do. And this story we read and we see that blind man comes to Jesus and he says, have mercy on me. You know, he was a blind man and he was a beggar, he was begging for food, you know, he could have asked Jesus for some money. He could have settled, he asked Jesus for some money. He could have settled and asked Jesus for some food. He could have settled and asked Jesus, I don't know, maybe for shelter. He could have settled for anything, but he said, Jesus, give me sight. And Jesus didn't say, oh no, you know, this is too much. How about I'll just give you lots of money, or I'll give you, I don't know, I'll give you something else. He gave him exactly that, what he was desiring and he was going after. God wants to grant the desires of your heart. The question is, do you have the desire and how strong the desire are? Your desires are. We're going to go into and kind of learn a little bit more about it. First point, I want you to write it down. God wants to see your strong desire. You know, the truth is that many of us really don't know what we really want. Today we see somebody, you know, we're driving old beaten up car and today we see somebody driving a nice Toyota Corolla and so we're like, oh man, I want that. And then the next day we see somebody driving Lexus, we're like, well, forget Corolla, I want Lexus now. And the next day we see somebody driving a Lamborghini or something else who's like, forget about Toyota, I want that. And then every day, every other week, our desire changes. And if we really look deep down and inside, we do want progress and success but that's all general and our desire is not concrete and we're all over the place. And so you have to have a desire that is strong, that will carry through, that desire will stay with you through days, through weeks, through months, that you see it till the end. You have to have a desire that's kind of like unbreakable. You focus and you go after it until you get it. You pay the price, you pursue it and you conquer it. And you don't switch, you know, today you like this girl, oh yeah, she's fine. And then you ask her for a number and she rejected you and tomorrow, hey, forget about this one, this one looks just fine. Let me ask for her number. Okay. Today, you know, you started this business and yeah, I want to make money, I want to do this. And then you kind of, you hear your first bump and you're like, you know, forget about, I'm going to start that business. I'm going to start that marketing, that multi-marketing program or whatever it is. You know, try Advocator and Advocator didn't work for me, I'm going to go for Herb's Life or something. Try this, I'm going to go. That didn't work, I'm going to, and so what happens is we go around and we start dumping money, $3,000, $5,000 there, $5,000 there's in this thing and then we started a whole bunch of things, we tried it and we keep, we keep failing, we keep stopping halfway and at the end of the day, we really don't know what we really want and therefore we do not succeed. Bible says that a man, a doubting man is like a sea wave and he is a double-minded man and he succeeds at nothing. You know, a double-minded man is a man of no desire, of no strong desire. He's all over the place. She's all over the place. They start one thing, they don't finish it, they dump it and they go to another thing and they start many things and they never finish because they don't have, they didn't figure out what they really want, they didn't glue the desire and they pursued it till the end. Now desire comes from two things, from needs or from wants. It's easier to pursue a desire from a need because you need it, something for example like a woman that had a daughter who was severely demon-possessed. And even though Jesus rejected her and said, listen, I didn't come to help people outside of Israel. My mission is to help the children of Israel. But her desire, her passionate pursuit for an answer was derived from a need. She needed, otherwise her daughter was gone as good as dead. I mean, her daughter was a lost cause. That need drove her to get an answer. And that's kind of where most people fall into for most part, is that they have a need and they allow that need to drive them to a certain point until the need is fulfilled. But in order for you to reach your promised land, the need is not going to be enough. You have to learn how to derive a desire from a want and sustain it and grow it. Does it make sense? That can set you free and kind of remove certain problems in your life. For example, you're sick in your body and a desire to be healed is strong because I mean, you feel it. It's in your body. I mean, doctors either gonna do something, cut something out, amputate it or you're gonna be all the time on the medication or this or that. And that desire pushes you, but then a want to be healthy, not many people have it. You see what I'm saying? It's now, you know, you don't have the need to drive you to be healthy. You're doing you feeling okay. And so not many people take the time to go and exercise and eat healthy and do all these things because it requires a whole not a level of discipline and commitment to derive from a want, derive a desire from a want. But if you're gonna reach your promised land, you're gonna have to learn how to make your want a need so that it can push you forward so you can achieve and get what God has called you to get. Does anybody receiving it tonight? See, the thing is that we were created to be passionate. We were created to, we were created with God's image. And God, if you see something about God, God gets what he wants. Yeah? Did you notice that? God never leaves it halfway. He wanted humanity to be saved. He went to the lengths of giving his own son to save you and me, to reach us. We were creating God's image. And naturally we have that persistence. Look at children, I have a little one. If she wants something, God forbid she doesn't get it. She will be persistent and she will throw a fit and she will do this and that. She even gets manipulative already here. She understands when she wants something, she'll come and give you a hug and say, Mama, nice. And then this, this, this she learned that word and points what she wants. It's in our nature to express our desire and have to pursue what we want. It's just over time as we grow older, multiple times over and over we don't get the things that we want and we subdue the desire. We come under influence of demonic spirits that make us lazy, lethargic, passive. Those of you that have been in our church for some time and you sometimes hear the confessions of demons and one thing they always say, I made them lazy. I made her not do this, not want to pursue career, not want to do this and not, not being passionate. And you see that, that it's in our human nature to pursue and desire things. But many times it's our experience and demonic influence that makes us to be passive and today I believe we're going to pray and we're going to break that over our life and we're going to get passionate, we're going to get excited and we will pursue not what God wants us but what we want because God already put the desire in our heart for us initially to pursue it in Jesus' name, amen. Let's write three practical steps how to have a strong desire. Number one, I think you have to give attention to it. What you give attention to grows. You have to, what I mean by give attention to it, you have to constantly remind yourself of it. You have to constantly keep it in forefront of you. You have to constantly give focus to it. You have to constantly keep it, bring it up in your mind. You have to give attention to it. Number two, you have to feed it. Whatever your passion, whatever your desire, whatever you want to accomplish, achieve you have to surround yourself with books, surround yourself with material, surround yourself with messages, podcasts, TED Talks, whatever it takes, you have to feed the desire so the desire becomes stronger and stronger and stronger. You have to fuel it. And number three, I believe you have to surround yourself with people that also have strong desires and ambition. I've noticed that in my life, you know, sometimes, you know, I consider myself a person that has a lot of desire and ambition and if I decided to do something and, you know, I'll go for it, sometimes even maybe a little bit overboard, but when I get around people that have the same kind of zeal, the same pursuit or even greater, it challenge me and motivates me and it pushes me to do and to pursue what I want to, what I desire, what I want. So I think these are three practical things that personally in my life that help me to pursue and to cultivate that desire within me. Point number two that I want to share and let you know is that your desire will always be tested. Your desire will always be tested. This actually will be determined if the desire is real or is just lost. You know, lost enough to that car, somebody has that car, you know, discover this spur moment. You know what? I'm going to go, I'm going to work hard, I'm going to, you know, get an extra job, I'm going to buy this house, I'm going to buy this car, I'm going to have this kind of business, I'm going to do that. And it's kind of temporary, kind of like, more of like a lost thing. I want to have what he has, covenantedness versus having that real desire. There's nothing wrong with having things in life. There's nothing wrong with what is designed to have a better car, a better house. There's nothing wrong to pursue greater things, better career, better pay, pursue a greater business. But is that a desire or is that just a loss for that thing? And the way it will be determined is through the test. A story from the Bible, Elisha, God gives Elijah a couple of assignments and then he says one of the things is that you go find another person and pass on your anointing. I'm just going to paraphrase the whole thing. Pass on your anointing, pass on your mental. So Elijah goes and he finds Elisha, he tosses the mental to him, Elisha picks it up and he follows Elijah. He received a promise to be an ex-prophet. He is to be the next prophet after Elijah. He got the calling, yay, he's the chosen one. He received word of prophecies in his life, you know, that you're going to be a great evangelist. You're going to be a great businessman, businesswoman. You're going to be this person, you're going to be this. God has a great destiny for you, woohoo, yes. If God said it, God will take care of it. I'm just going to go eating potato chips and then watch a Netflix show. Let it be so God, let it be. Here's the thing though, Elijah is right about to, Elijah is right about to be taken up and Elijah is telling to Elisha, stay back, I'm leaving, don't follow me. And this is where he's calling and his desire was put to test. Should I stay back or should I keep following my calling? Should I listen to what other people are telling me because there's another 300 prophets that came out to him and say, listen, your master will be taken up, don't follow him or should I continue to pursue my calling? Should I continue to pursue that desire, that goal, that passion, that ambition that I have? It was tested. Then Elijah himself told him, don't follow me. And then he continued to follow it. You can see that he had a desire, he wanted what he was in pursuit after. He wanted that call. He wanted that mental on his life and he continued to follow him. And Elijah made a deal. He said, if you see me taken up, first you ask him, what do you want from me? And this is the key moment. And because he didn't quit, because he didn't give up, he didn't stay back, here comes that moment. Elijah asking, what do you want from me? He says, give me the double. After Elijah's taken up, second time he gets the second mental. This is what he uses to break the waters, walk through the Jordan and becomes a prophet with the double anointing that Elijah had. Any time you're going to make up your mind to pursue something, any time you're going to get this desire, this zeal to pursue something, maybe it's in a business idea, maybe it's to grow your home group, maybe it's to become a pastor, maybe it's to become a musician, maybe it's become a professional athlete, maybe it's to become a, I don't know what it is that you desire, that God's given desire within you. You always be tested whether you really want it or it's just a temporary desire, the lust of the fame, of the success, of the achievement that you had. Another story, Israelites, we talked about them. God brings them out of Egypt. God's supporting them with his miracles, with his signs. I mean, tremendous things are going. God just drowned the whole army, the strongest empire of that time in the Red Sea. I mean, God is doing great things feeding them in a desert, providing all these things for them. And at the moment of test of their desire, do they really want to be in a promised land? Do they really want to be there? Do they really want to possess the promise of God? They see some few big men, some strong walls. They see, they begin to, and they get shaken in the desire, and they say, God just brought us out here to die. Forget about the promised land, we're better off in Egypt, and they start going backwards. That desire is tested and doesn't stand the test of time, the test of temptation, the test of hardship. Your desire, what you want, the goal that you set, the, you know, I want to be a millionaire by age 30, 25. I want to build my home group to six people by the end of the year, or by in one year or in 18 months. There's going to come a time where either things will not go the way they're going, or whether it's going to be discouragement or maybe some setbacks you will experience, and your desire will be put to test. And this is where you decide, do I pursue it, do I continue to believe it, do I continue to cultivate and feed this flame of desire inside of me, or do I shrink back and give up or settle for what I already have, and forget about the promised land, forget about the fullness of God that He has for me. Even if God will give you a miracle of something that you ask for, if you didn't passionately desire you either will not appreciate it or you will quickly lose it. That's, that's, that's only two outcomes. When God will give you something in your life, whether it's a spouse, whether it's a business, whether it's a promotion, whatever it might be. If God does a miracle in your life without your participation, without your earnest desire, you either will not appreciate it and you will be a spoiled brat, which God doesn't like those, just letting you know. Or number two, you will just quickly lose it. You have to want it bad enough and you have to sacrifice for it. Solomon in his life, he wanted God. You know, we read Solomon and we listen to, you know, we kind of read about his life and it was like, God comes to him and said, just ask me whatever you want. You were like, wow, you know, yes, God, ask me what I want and stuff. But if you really see in Solomon, you will see through his sacrifice, you will see the depth of his desire for wisdom to govern his people right. And then just, Solomon didn't just kind of, at the spur of the moment, the first thing that rolled into his head, God said, what do you want? And Solomon just like, you know, spin the fortune wheel and the fortune wheel landed on wisdom. Yes, God, you know, I want wisdom. If it landed on, you know, much gold and he would pick that. No, we see that Solomon sacrificed a thousand bulls to express his deepest desire for God to pay attention to him. And God comes and says, what do you want? God already knew his desire. God, the Bible says that it's not, nothing's hidden for God. It's just written so that we could see it today. So we can read it. God knew his deep desire, his depth, in depth of his desire, he want to govern, he want to have a wisdom so he can govern God's people. And that's why God asked him the question. You have to pay the price, you have to sacrifice in order to see your desire be fulfilled. Whatever it takes, if you want to be successful, you ask any athlete. You ask any person that achieved greatness, we just had Olympics. People for four years train for that 30 seconds, a minute, minute 32 minutes. I don't think there's any event besides triathlons that lasts anything longer than a couple of minutes. For four years, you can't do that without intense desire. You can't become a person that God called you to be without passionate, ambitious desire. Whatever it is, whether it's in your marriage, whether it's in your health, whether it's to grow your home group, whether it's becoming somebody, whether it's starting a business, whether it's moving further in your career, you have to have a passionate desire and God can help you have it. Because God initially instilled it into you. Point number three, strong desire will unlock your destiny. Bible says, Proverbs 10, 24, the fear of the wicked, he shall come upon him, but a desire of the righteous shall be granted. God doesn't give anything to us without us earnestly wanted. You know that God doesn't even offer his gifts of the Holy Spirit, even though they're free, they're gifts. God, Apostle Paul says, zeal for it, zeal for it. God is not going to toss anything at you, give you anything significant in your life without you having a passionate desire for it. You have to want it and you have to want it bad enough. No one stumbles into greatness. Nobody stumbles into greatness. This must be greatly, greatly desired. Thomas Edison had a strong desire to perfect a light bulb. That's why he never gave up over thousands and thousands of times trying to make it better. Steve Jobs had a strong desire to make user experience better and easier and to change the computer industry. Started Apple company. Things didn't go well. It started another company called Next. That computer did not, or Cube, something like that, sorry if I'm getting things right, wrong. That company didn't go so well, it kind of failed, got hired back at Apple and it created that Mac user experience that today me and you and many of you are enjoying it. And today Apple is considered number one valued company in the world. But that was not without great desire to see it come. Overcoming many obstacles, overcoming many failures, many bankruptcies to come to the place to see things accomplished. Hannah became a mother of prophet Samuel, which anointed the greatest king, David. Passionate desire. Anything that is conceived with great desire gives birth to greatness. Anything that is conceived with great desire gives birth to greatness. Hannah, she was childless and with great desire, great passion, great ambition, she was crying out to God, God open the womb, I'll do anything, I'll even give my own child for service. She went that great and God couldn't pass the desire. He had to grant it. David was a man after God's own heart. Now David had a great desire after God. David was willing to lose his kingdom, but he asked God, please just one thing I ask, don't take your spirit away from me. He said, take everything. I don't care. Take the kingdom. Take everything. But don't take your spirit from me. And God couldn't pass that. God couldn't ignore that. That's why God called him a man after his own heart, a man of a great, great desire, great passion. Paul, apostle Paul that we read today, two-thirds of a testament, a great hero in my demand of faith. But you know, he started off having a desire for the wrong thing, but he was passionate. He was passionate. He thought he was working for God. He thought he was doing things for God. Then God came on the scene, kind of corrected him, said, hey, you're doing the wrong thing. The apostle Paul turns around, right away he says, God, what will you have me do? What will you have me do? And next thing you know, apostle Paul goes, not even one bit loses that desire, the desire that, you know, an ounce of that desire to serve God, goes on this great expose for God. Many times gets beaten, many times in shipwreck, many times dies, many times almost dies, many times in starvation, but he doesn't lose the desire to serve God. And at the end of the day he says, I run the race, I accomplished everything that God has called me to do. He's a man of a great desire. And today we read two-thirds of the testament that was written by him. Today we'll live off of the words that was inspired by the Holy Spirit through him because he was a man of a great desire. The apostle Paul says, fight according to your prophecies. My question is, isn't it, if God said it, you know, how do they say, if God's will, God's built, how do they, you know, if God decides to do something in my life he'll take care of it, he'll give them money for it and all this stuff. That's not, many times it's used, are complete out of context. If that was the case, then apostle Paul would not say, fight according to your prophecies. Hold on to the desire, hold on to that passion, hold on to that goal, keep fighting until you get to the end. Today I'm asking you a question, today Jesus is asking you a question, what do you want from me? What do you want me to do for you? What do you really, really want me to accomplish in your life? Because he wants to do a lot for you. He wants to establish you, he wants to raise you up, he wants to establish a legacy, your legacy, he wants to bless you with many blessings, he wants to multiply you, he wants to, he wants to enrich you, he wants to give you breakthrough, that's what he wants but what do you want? What do you want today? And God will help you if you make up your mind today.