“Holy Desire” is the seed of love that inspires people to take action to serve and please the Holy One, God! Holy desire is the deep longing in the heart for God and for the things that please God.

Holy desire unlike sensual desire is not born of the flesh, it is born of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us that causes us to long to love God as He deserves to be loved. Holy desire is the holy seed that conceives and gives birth to holy deeds, holy words and holy prayers rendering the soul more and more beautiful.

God says this: “I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy…” Leviticus 11:44

All people of faith are called to be consecrated to God. In this consecration or holy dedication we give our lives to God for His glory in a solemn, serious commitment to love Him and one another.  This is not something that only the ‘Religious’ do; it is something that each and every disciple is called to do.

We cannot be holy without the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within us. It is God Himself living within us that enables us to be born of the Spirit and His Holy Spirit will challenge the sensual desire and the errors that we make when we are driven solely to satisfy our flesh and its carnal desires.

For example, all of us have a human need for food. Our sense of hunger is a sensual urge that motivates us to eat. But that sensual desire unchecked and uncontrolled could lead to gluttony – an excess of food and drink that defiles the soul and likely makes us physically unhealthy too.

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” Ezekiel 16:49

Holy desire is selfless but sensual desire is selfish. Holy desire allows us to see the things that matter to God, but sensual desire is spiritually blind, focused solely on the needs of our flesh.

Jesus warned His apostles on the night before He died, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:41

Becoming beautiful in a spiritual sense requires that we consider God’s will and seek to fulfill what He desires.

“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” 1 Peter 3:3-4

The global economy promotes materialism. If a car gets rusty we often want to replace it even if it continues to serve our need for mobility. If we could not see, we would not know that the car was rusty and we would value its function without concern for its form or outward beauty.

The bible tells us that Jesus “had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.” Isaiah 53:2-3

The beauty of Jesus was hidden to the naked eye. Jesus was the most beautiful man that ever lived, the Deity in human form!  Jesus was the most beautiful of all souls, Our Lord and Our God!  Jesus allowed Himself to be tortured and killed for our salvation. Under the veil of physical disfigurement we can see His Holy Desire for mankind. “But many were amazed when they saw him. His face was so disfigured he seemed hardly human, and from his appearance, one would scarcely know he was a man.” Isaiah 52:14

Holy desire is a gift, a grace from God, to desire what is important to God. It is the grace to be able to love without receiving anything in return. It is the grace to be able to see what the senses conceal and what the Spirit of God reveals.

Holy desire makes people do amazing, courageous, selfless things. Holy desire gives rise to actions that are so heroic that we cannot help but see God living in the person whose heart beats only for Him.

Let me introduce you to one such man.

“His name was Maximilian Kolbe. He was a Polish priest who died in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz on August 14, 1941. When a prisoner escaped from the camp, the Nazis selected 10 people to be killed by starvation as punishment for the escape. One of the 10 men selected to die, Franciszek Gajowniczek, began to cry: “My wife! My children! I will never see them again!” At this Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward and asked to die in his place. His request was granted.

Gajowniczek later recalled:

‘I could only thank him with my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly grasp what was going on. The immensity of it: I, the condemned, am to live and someone else willingly and voluntarily offers his life for me – a stranger. Is this some dream?

I was put back into my place without having had time to say anything to Maximilian Kolbe. I was saved. And I owe to him the fact that I could tell you all this. The news quickly spread all round the camp. It was the first and the last time that such an incident happened in the whole history of Auschwitz.

For a long time I felt remorse when I thought of Maximilian. By allowing myself to be saved, I had signed his death warrant. But now, on reflection, I understood that a man like him could not have done otherwise. Perhaps he thought that as a priest his place was beside the condemned men to help them keep hope. In fact he was with them to the last.’‘

Father Kolbe was thrown down the stairs of Building 13 along with the other victims and simply left there to starve. Hunger and thirst soon gnawed at the men. Some drank their own urine, others licked moisture on the humid walls. Maximilian Kolbe encouraged the others with prayers, psalms, and meditations on the Passion of Christ. After two weeks, only four were alive. The cell was needed for more victims, and the camp executioner, a common criminal called Bock, came in and injected a lethal dose of cabolic acid into the left arm of each of the four dying men. Kolbe was the only one still fully conscious and with a prayer on his lips, the last prisoner raised his arm for the executioner. His wait was over …

A personal testimony about the way Maximilian Kolbe met death is given by Bruno Borgowiec, one of the few Poles who were assigned to render service to the starvation bunker. He told it to his parish priest before he died in 1947:

‘The ten condemned to death went through terrible days. From the underground cell in which they were shut up there continually arose the echo of prayers and canticles. The man in-charge of emptying the buckets of urine found them always empty. Thirst drove the prisoners to drink the contents. Since they had grown very weak, prayers were now only whispered. At every inspection, when almost all the others were now lying on the floor, Father Kolbe was seen kneeling or standing in the centre as he looked cheerfully in the face of the SS men.

Father Kolbe never asked for anything and did not complain, rather he encouraged the others, saying that the fugitive might be found and then they would all be freed. One of the SS guards remarked: this priest is really a great man. We have never seen anyone like him ..

Two weeks passed in this way. Meanwhile one after another they died, until only Father Kolbe was left. This, the authorities felt was too long. The cell was needed for new victims. So one day they brought in the head of the sick-quarters, a German named Bock, who gave Father Kolbe an injection of carbolic acid in the vein of his left arm. Father Kolbe, with a prayer on his lips, gave his arm to the executioner. Unable to watch this I left under the pretext of work to be done. Immediately after the SS men had left I returned to the cell, where I found Father Kolbe leaning in a sitting position against the back wall with his eyes open and his head drooping sideways. His face was calm and radiant ..’” source: http://auschwitz.dk/Kolbe.htm

Jesus is our High Priest, the Holy One, who dwelled in the heart of Fr. Maximilian Kolbe full of holy desire. Jesus gave Him the courage and the love to sacrifice Himself to save a man’s life.

Do you think Franciszek Gajowniczek ever forgot Fr. Kolbe?  I doubt it.

Nor should we ever forget that Jesus gave His life so that we could be saved!

Jesus suffered a brutal, agonizing death to open the gates of Paradise to us, so that we could one day be free of pain and live in peace and joy eternally.

Will you forget the price that Jesus paid for you?

Will you forget His holy face looking at you and loving you as He hung on the Cross?

Will you stop to thank Jesus for giving up His life for you everyday at 3pm (the time He died for us) as we remember the greatest love the world has ever known and will ever know, the love of Our Saviour Jesus Christ?

Hold Jesus in your heart and He will fill you with holy desire that will eclipse the sensual desire that leads souls astray. Look at Jesus hanging on the Cross for you and your heart will be changed and that’s a Revolution of Love that will fill you with holy desire to please Jesus! That’s a peaceful revolution born through the infinite love and power of God!

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13

Learn more about the global Christian prayer movement that gives glory to God motivating followers of Jesus to stop and pray and remember the Passion of Christ each and every day at the time Jesus died for us, 3pm (in our local time zones).  The sacrifice of Jesus must be remembered by all who love Him!  Remember Him and know that Our Lord Jesus will ignite holy desire in the hearts of mankind and that holy desire will change the world.  Learn more about  The Mercy Movement