What Do You Really Want?

How Desire, Honesty, and Transformation Shape True Discipleship

In the Gospel of John, there is a striking moment that often goes unnoticed. It is the very first time Jesus speaks in this ancient biography, and His opening line is simple yet piercing. He turns to two men who are beginning to follow Him and asks, What do you want?

For ancient readers, the first recorded words of a main character were meant to reveal the essence of who that person is. Matthew, Mark, and Luke show Jesus beginning His ministry with commands like Repent or Follow Me. John, however, gives us a Jesus who begins with a question that reaches straight into the human soul.

What do you want?

This is not small talk. This is not Jesus checking attendance. This is Jesus doing what He always does. He aims for the heart.

And that question still stands before every one of us today.

1. Discipleship Begins With Desire

We often imagine Jesus’ discipleship as a list of rules or behaviors. Read more. Pray more. Clean up your act. Stop doing this. Start doing that. Many churches even teach that approach. But Jesus does not begin with rules. He begins with desire.

He asks, What are you seeking?

The Greek word for want in John 1 is not shallow desire. It means to seek, to pursue, to give your life toward something. Jesus is not asking for surface-level goals. He is unearthing the motivations beneath the motivations. He is inviting these men to name what they truly long for.

And He asks because He knows this. Until we face our desires honestly, discipleship becomes a performance instead of a transformation.

Jesus did not choose disciples the way the rabbis of His day did. Other teachers recruited the brightest scholars. Jesus walked down to the docks and called fishermen, men who had flunked out of the traditional system. Men with mixed motives. Men who probably hoped that following a miracle worker might give them status or power. Men carrying wounds, disappointments, and unspoken dreams.

Jesus looks at all of that and asks, What do you want? Because once He has the heart, He can shape the life.

2. Desire Exposes the True Self

The early church father Augustine said, Allow me to know myself so that I may know You. Honesty with God is the starting point of spiritual growth.

For many of us, though, honesty is frightening. We prefer masks, not because we are deceitful, but because we fear rejection. We fear that if God or others saw our real motives, they might pull away. So we show the polished version of ourselves. We pray polished prayers. We serve with polished intentions. And we wonder why love feels hollow or why transformation feels distant.

A mask can receive attention, applause, and even admiration. But a mask can never receive love. Only the real self can be loved.

Jesus’ question peels back those layers. When we dare to answer honestly, the true self begins to emerge. The parts we hid. The parts we feared. The parts we thought were too messy or too selfish to bring to God.

But He already sees it. And He invites us into the light because nothing transforms in the dark.

3. Why Jesus Refuses Shallow Change

Many Christians have lived under a version of faith that demands behavior modification but neglects the human heart. It leaves people exhausted, ashamed, or secretly miserable. It produces rule followers, not transformed people.

Jesus’ approach is entirely different. He does not begin by saying, Fix yourself. He begins by saying, Let Me see you.

He knows that moral behavior without healed desires becomes spiritual repression. And repression eventually breaks. The fruit of a changed heart grows naturally. The fruit of forced Christianity rots.

Jesus came not to make bad people behave better, but to make dead people come alive.

4. When God Asks the Hard Question

Many people have had their own version of this moment. A spiritual director. A therapist. A friend. A crisis. Something forces the question to the surface.

What do you want?

And often the first answer is not the real answer.

A person may say, I want to serve. But deep down, they want belonging.
They may say, I want success. But deep down, they crave safety.
They may say, I want a relationship. But deep down, they long to be known and accepted.
They may say, I want money. But deep down, they crave freedom or peace.

Desire sits on layers. At the bottom of every human desire is a longing for God, even when it disguises itself as something else.

When the true desire finally surfaces, transformation begins. Because now Jesus can touch the place that is actually hurting, not the place we pretend is hurting.

5. When the True Self Emerges, Transformation Follows

Honesty is not the end goal. It is the doorway.

Once we uncover what we truly want, Jesus can speak into it, heal it, reorder it, redeem it. The deepest part of discipleship is not becoming a better Christian but becoming a truer human. The self that God designed. The self that can love and receive love. The self that lives from truth instead of fear.

This is why Jesus’ first words in John are not commands, but a question. He is not trying to fix your behavior. He is inviting you to find your soul.

A Final Invitation

If Jesus stood before you today, He would not begin with a lecture, a rebuke, or a list of doctrines. He would ask you the same question He asked two thousand years ago.

What do you want?

Say it honestly. Say it without spiritual language. Say the messy version. Say the selfish version. Say the scared version. Say the real version.

Then ask yourself the second question.

Why do I want that?

Keep digging until you find the desire beneath the desire. Somewhere down there is the part of you Jesus is trying to touch. Somewhere down there is the beginning of true transformation.

And somewhere down there is the place where God meets you as you really are, not as you pretend to be.