Matthew 20:21

And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.”

Luke 18:41

“What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.”

Want comes down to only two issues, selfless and selfish.

The larger issue here is who are we asking to provide our wants. Asking our Lord is acknowledging He has the ability to do all things. Asking our parents is limited to their personal abilities. Asking anyone who has authority over us is begging.

Then there is the thief that neither cares about authority or the needs of others. 

John 10:10 A

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

We know that Satan is the thief but does the thief know he is under Satan thumb?

If there is no god then there is no satan and everything boils down to want, no right, no wrong just want.

My wife asks me nearly every day, “What do you want?” I do not answer her honestly. What I want is beyond her power to provide. The question itself places me into a position of selfishness even if my answer is to see God’s will be done. 

I know what is coming, I just don’t know when or how. If I focus on that and desire to see it in my lifetime I will be focusing on my emotions rather than His commands.

To do the will of the Father one must first know what the Father is asking of us in order to bring about those promises He has made to us, His children. We are involved in the order of things because Father God set all these things in motion so that we can walk in it, by faith.

Faith doesn’t want, it just is.

2 Timothy 1:9

 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,

Remember that our God is the God of order. First and foremost no one is called until after they are saved. This is why salvation is so important. This is why the preaching of the Good News must come first. Find the lost soul, preach the gospel and allow the seed to do what only the seed can do, change the heart in which it takes root.

Then and only then can a believer discover their own particular holy calling. It is holy only when that calling serves the purpose which Christ Jesus has for us. Christ is the only one who can identify each particular calling because He set them in place from the very beginning.

His grace is patient with us as we fumble along trying to walk by faith because He knows what each of us has to overcome in order to discover our holy calling.

This is where “our works” comes into play. When I was first baptized I had church elders telling me I should become a missionary. They had no missionaries in their lineage and they felt they needed to fill a quota. “Faith without works is dead.” They hammered that into my head.

Their error was in thinking just because I was baptized I was saved. Their traditions became their work but they were not careful to follow God’s prescription for making disciples. Discipleship is not baptism. The word of God prescribes the order and methods which leads newborns into a life of growth according to God’s will, not their own.

They failed to see if I was born again. Just because one is baptized does not mean they are born again. Order must be established and maintained according to God’s plan not the works of man.

When my granddaughter wanted to be baptized her youth pastors and elders tried to talk her out of it. I thought that was strange until I realized they were testing her faith to make sure she was born again and not just going along because everyone else was doing it. Going along to get along is no reason to get baptized. It is a prescription that is written on the heart of a newborn by their Lord.

Now so many years after my first baptism I am born again, I am a disciple, I was baptized rightly, have matured and know my holy calling. How do I know?

Ephesians 2:8

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

A gift cannot be earned, it can only be received through faith.