Your focus determines your reality and your desires.

You love what you know.

Your valuation of the options you see determines what you do.

If you want to love truth and righteousness more, then you need to learn more about truth and righteousness; you need to narrow your focus on the truth and righteousness God wants to teach you. This includes diverting your focus and attention away from those things that distract, deceive, and alure you away from that truth and righteousness God is offering to teach you. As your perceived value of truth and righteousness increases, your desires for truth and righteousness will likewise increase.

Jesus invites us to learn of him. He invites us to follow him. He invites us to become as he is and receive what he has. He shows us the way.

When the siren-call of temptation and evil calls to us, all we need to do is refocus our desires on what he offers, why he offers it, and the path he provides for obtaining it. If this is not enough to convince us to do good and to follow him, then we need to redouble our efforts to focus on him, learn more about him, learn more of his doctrine, learn more of his ways, learn more of what he offers, and then actively adjust our valuations and priorities accordingly. We need to refocus our eyes on him and disregard the vices that compete for our time and attention.

We cease to sin because we have adjusted our understanding, values, and desires to align with the understanding, values, and desires that Jesus demonstrates and offers to us.

Jesus will bless us according to our righteous desires as we actively pursue them and act on them. Our righteous desires are those desires that align with his desires, that align with justice and truth, that bring us more of what is best.

We fail to receive the blessings we seek from God when we seek those things that do not align with what is best, when our desires and reasons for what we desire would do more harm than good.

It is true that men and women often receive according to their desires through faith. But that does not mean that they receive according to their desires through faith in Christ; it means that they have determined an outcome and made reasonable efforts to receive or achieve that outcome based on reason and logic. But the blessings of heaven are always predicated upon our alignment with righteousness. To be righteous is to be on that path which leads to greater alignment with the purposes and perfections of God.

Faith requires evidence. Faith requires reason. Faith requires calculated effort for receiving and achieving a specific outcome. We seek the outcomes we desire. We seek the outcomes we value. We seek the outcomes we have been persuaded yield the greatest value. And so, as stated previously, if we wish to purify our desires by bringing them into alignment with God’s, we need to focus on him, learn of him, choose him, sacrifice all that we have for what he offers us, and by so doing learn the value of what he offers because we have paid dearly to receive all that he freely gives to those who seek him.

It is true that within the context of grace, mercy, and righteousness, those who offer grace always value what they offer more than they who receive it. But it is also true that in order to receive what is offered, a certain level of desire, obedience, and sacrifice is required in order to receive the grace and blessings being freely offered.

God gives freely in the sense that he is not repaid the price he paid to offer these blessings. The cost God paid to offer us his grace was very high, and we do not have the ability to fully recompense him for that. Let’s just be clear on that. But we are expected and required to do certain things in order to receive what he offers.

We must seek, study, learn, obey, merit, and sacrifice for what is offered according to the terms being offered. We must seek understanding and appreciation. We must purify our hearts and elevate our desires. We must learn truth and grow in righteousness. We must align our understanding and values with his. We must become willing to do what is required. Then, and only then, does epic righteousness become possible.