Take Delight in the Lord

Psalm 37:1-4 “Don’t worry about the wicked or envy those who do wrong. For like grass, they soon fade away. Like spring flowers, they soon wither. Trust in the Lord and do good. Then you will live safely in the land and prosper. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.”

I read that we live in a culture where people are profoundly dissatisfied, where we have an unsaturated lust for more and more, constantly changing. Have you noticed how people desire that which is “new and improved”. However, to be satisfied by little or much, to learn contentment is a Christian virtue. The key is to delight ourselves in the Lord. Thank be to God! There is an antidote to covetousness, and that antidote is found in Jesus Christ, who brings love, joy, peace and rest to our hearts. Verse four of Psalm 37 is a bit of a “trick statement”. When a child of God takes delight in the Lord, God’s desires becomes their desires also. So, when the desires of our heart and the desires of God are one and the same, then God will give us our heart’s desires.

James 4:2-3 “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

Some would say that this would be like Henry Ford’s quote about his Model “T” automobile: “You can get it in any color that you desire, as long as it’s black.” Not really. The most astonishing thing that happens in Christian conversion is that God reaches down and changes what we desire and delight in. Suddenly, things we always wanted and never had enough of, we do not want anymore. We can have what we want, but we want what God wants for us and in us, because our heart’s desires and motives have aligned with God’s. Suddenly, our affections are set on Him and things above, and the things of this world grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. 

 1 Timothy 6:6-7 “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.”

Christ gives us new desires, new affections. He sets our affections on things above, not on the things of this world – Colossians 3:2. Christ’s Pilgrims pass through Vanity Fair without being enticed by all the baubles therein because they take delight in the Lord.

 

In Christ, Brian