Are you Delighted in His
Word- 10-19-15
Every year we go on a hike to the beautiful Burney Falls, in California. I could truly sit at the waters edge and watch it, delighting myself in its splendor all day long.
The Word of God tells us we are to desire to be in the Lord's presence like that.
Delight yourself also in
the Lord; and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4
What does it mean to
delight yourself in the Lord in the first place? Let’s look at the word delight
first of all.
de·light, dəˈlīt/ verb 1.please
(someone) greatly.
Noun great pleasure Synonyms: pleasure,
happiness, joy , glee, gladness
So to delight ourselves in
the Lord could mean to enjoy, take pleasure , have happiness or gladness or
even joy in the Lord! I like this; I truly
enjoy myself when I am worshiping the Lord and feeling as if I am in His
presence. I think this is what the Psalmist is trying to tell us to do is get
up close and personal and enjoy the presence of the Lord.
He goes on to say that
when we do then He will give us the desires of our heart. Well the desires we
have when we are in His presence are generally going to be in His will so I
think that is pretty accurate, don’t you?
When my children where
small if they were enjoying my company they would not be fighting, they would
not be whining, they would be full of joy and happiness about what we were
doing together. They did not go asking me for things during these times that I
would say no to, because with the quality time we would be having they would
not want to ruin it with the wrong want.
When we are spending time
worshiping, or reading His Word we tend to think more like God would think; an
we do what Jesus would do, and say what He would say,
I think it’s a lot like
when we hang with someone who likes a sport we start to find interest in the
sport, even if we did not find it interesting before. Or if a friend is into a
certain book series and they start telling us about it we can easily slip into
the will of our friend and enjoy the book tool
If all it was about, this Psalm 37, was spending
time enjoying the presence of God that would truly be a delight but there is
more to it.
Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in
Him, And He shall bring it to pass. He
shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as
the noonday.
Psalm
37:5-6
We are to commit ourselves to following Him and
trusting Him and knowing that He will bring to pass what He promises. He will
help us make His desires, our desires when we draw close to Him and study His
word and plant it in our hearts to the point of growing stronger in our
relationship with Him.
I mean, if you think about it; to get closer to a
friend, brother or Lord you must spend time getting to know them better. To get
to know someone better you must spend time with them. Talking, walking after
His direction, and praying, resting in His presence and studying the Word or
worshiping the Lord all bring us to a point where we know Him more.
One of my favorite worship chorus’ is “To Know
Him” It goes something like “To know Him to Know Him is the cry of my heart,
Spirit reveal Him to me. To hear what He’s saying brings life to my bones, to
know Him, to know Him my Lord.” When I sing this song I feel as though my heart
cries out to the Lord the words more than many other worship songs we sing. It’s
the straight stuff!
When we delight ourselves in Him, we are
following after that desire to know Him more. The more we follow after that
desire, and commit ourselves to the things we do to get to know Him more the
more He will answer our godly desires and wants as well.
We have to take the step to know Him, and then
keep walking closer and closer through prayer and the Word of God.
How about if we challenge ourselves today, begin
a week of prayer asking God to show you the desires of your heart. Not just the
wants, like coffee or chocolate but the true desires of a committed heart.
Then next week let’s pray that He helps us
achieve those desires that we would truly walk in His joy as we walk in His
Word daily.
I keep saying that we need to read our Bibles
daily because if we skip it we will become weak. If we skip prayer we will
become weaker, and eventually we will not even desire to be in His presence. We
will loose the joy of the Lord that is our strength when we do not commit to
spend time with Him daily.
Dear
Heavenly Father draw us near to Your Holy Spirit that we would be right there
in Your presence gaining strength to draw even nearer and to know Your will for
our lives today. Bless us an d keep us in Jesus name, amen.
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