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11th May 2024
SaturdayReflection
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Rhonda Stoppe asks
What Does it Mean to Delight Yourself in the Lord? (Psalm 37:4)
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Psalm 37:4 says,
"Delight yourself also in the LORD and He shall give you the desires of your heart."
We are tempted to focus on the latter half of this verse which seems to promise that God will give us whatever our little hearts desire.
But realizing the context of Psalm 37:4 will help us better comprehend what it means to delight in the Lord.
Lori grew up attending a church that was big on emotional experiences.
Not a Sunday went by that someone didn't say they had received a "special word from the Lord."
When the music played there were lots of tears, hallelujah shouts and other things that she wasn't too sure about.
During the week the pendulum swung the other way when Lori attended a conservative Christian school with legalistic overtones.
While her church would say their hunger for experiences expressed their delight in the Lord, the message she got from school was,
"God is only delighted when you live up to His expectations."
Lori was conflicted and wanted real answers about what it meant to delight herself in the Lord.
Maybe you can relate?
True delight in Him causes us to take our sights off of what we want in order to long for what He desires.
The command to delight in God appears amidst a list that King David penned in the Psalms as the antidote for his fretting people:
Right in the middle of fretting over circumstances God wants us to somehow delight in Him.
That sounds great, but how is one to muster up delight in God when everything around you seems to be going wrong?
The best way to stop fretting is to take your eyes off the circumstances and fix them on Jesus who is the true source of a believer's delight.
We are all bent to admire our heroes.
Whether it's an athlete, musician or entertainer, we enjoy following their accomplishments.
But God created us with the longing to admire all the wonders of who He is and His excellent greatness.
Looking to a person to fill this God-given desire will never bring true delight or satisfaction.
Realize "the god of this world blinds the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Corinthians 4:4).
So, their desire to worship will always turn toward idolizing a person, or belief system, unless the Holy Spirit opens their eyes to the truth.
Delight in how excellent is God that He opened your eyes to realize your need for a Saviour!
Devote yourself to discovering in the Bible what He reveals about His character and ways and you cannot help but delight in His excellence.
If you spend the rest of your life learning the immeasurable greatness of God, admiration for Jesus will explode in your heart and mind.
This will ignite an insatiable desire in you to know more of His excellencies -- resulting in even greater delight and true satisfaction in Him.
And nothing -- not even fretful circumstances, will steal away from you this supernatural delight.
><(((°>
Bible Study Tools.
Proud member of Salem Media Group.
We believe in the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit, and that He performs the miracle of the new birth in an unbeliever and indwells believers, enabling them to live a godly life.
We believe that man was created in the image of God, but because of sin, was alienated from God.
That alienation can be removed only by accepting through faith God's gift of salvation made possible by Christ's death and Resurrection.
Rhonda Stoppe is a best-selling Christian author of seven books.
With 40 years of experience in helping women build no regrets lives, Rhonda has become a highly sought after voice in the Christian living community.
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