Word of the Week - Delight
Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4
Delighting ourselves in the Lord means that our hearts truly find peace and fulfillment in Him. According to Merriam-Webster, Delight is defined as a high degree of gratification or pleasure – Joy. I think we would agree that we all desire to have peace, fulfillment and joy in our lives but it often seems to be elusive and we end up experiencing the opposite such as anxiety, discontentment, and frustration. So how do we Delight ourselves in the Lord? I believe it really is about us aligning our values and our lives with the Lord and His values. If we truly seek to find our satisfaction and worth in Christ, He promises to give us the longings of our heart. My experience in walking with God over the past 18 years confirms this promise. This is a self-fulfilling prophesy because as we pursue God and His ways He transforms our hearts and we become Christlike and value what He values. This is truly the transformational power of the Gospel at work in our lives and it is really miraculous. “But seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be give to you as well” Matthew 6:33 God simply desires to be the first priority and everything else follows. As my friend Bruce Johnston says, “divine order produces divine blessing”.The challenge is that we live in a world with a different set of values and priorities. These forces are real and constantly coming at us and our families from every angle every day, especially through media and I-phones. The world system values and “delights” in wealth, status, power, material possessions, vanity and other temporary things of this world, which cannot be satisfied. In this system we can never get what we want and are always left discontent and wanting more. King Solomon the wealthiest person who ever lived wrote the entire book of Ecclesiastes with the conclusion that everything temporal is meaningless and only things of God and eternity really matter. On the other hand, delighting in the Lord and things of eternity, which includes our fellow man, is true treasure indeed. 1 Timothy 6:6 reminds us that “Godliness with contentment is great gain”. Furthermore, there is tremendous protection over our lives and our families if we make the Delighting in the Lord our priority. “The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in Him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with His hand.” Psalm 37:23-24Psalm 37:4 above gives us the secret, when we delight ourselves in the Lord, when we pursue Him with all of our heart, He is the One Who will give us the desires of our heart, in line with His Kingdom, His way of doing things. In verse 5 of that same chapter we read that we are to “commit our ways unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.” We Delight ourselves in Him by praising and worshipping Him, reading His Word, fellowshipping with Him, serving Him, loving Him and following his commands. We also Delight ourselves in God by loving others and living the by the great commandment. This all leads to knowing God at a deeper and more intimate level. The more we get to know the Lord, the greater our trust and peace will be in Him, regardless of our circumstances.This world can never satisfy our deepest longings, but if we choose to Delight in God’s way, He will always provide above and beyond our expectations. Jesus said, “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” John 4:14I pray you have a Delightful week.-Duane