Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. - Psalm 37: 4 (ESV)
Psalm 37:4 is a well known verse. It is a verse that many hold close to their heart. Why wouldn't it be? On face value we all want God to give us the desires of our heart! The problem of course is we tend to overlook the qualifier in this verse. It is not merely that God will give us everything we want. The reality is that God is showing us that there is a proportional relationship between the two parts of this verse.
The first part is to "delight yourself in the Lord." Well what does that mean? It means that we start to value eternal things over temporal things. That we esteem the ways of the Lord over the ways of this world. It is that transforming of our minds which Paul speaks to. To no longer conform to the way the world thinks but rather, that we mold our thinking after the ways of the Lord. Where does that start? It always starts with His Word. He is His Word. We have to stop chasing experiential Christianity and get back to Biblical Christianity. It is not "legalism" to want to follow the precepts of God. Our salvation alone should be outwardly manifested in a sincere desire to know God more through His Word, please God more by adhering to His Word and grow into a more intimate relationship with God by living His Word. Not out of compulsion. Not out of duty. Not even out of fear. Out of a sense of delight. It should please us greatly to do so. A synonym for delight is joy. We have to get out of this mindset that seeks God for what He can do for us and instead seek Him because it makes us happy. It gives us joy. It is our delight.
The more we are able to do this, the corresponding response from the Lord will be that He will give us the desires of our heart. Not that we all will drive fancy cars because the less we delight in the world, the less the cheap baubles they offer will mean to us. No beloved, the more we truly delight ourselves in the Lord the more the desires of our heart will start to look like the desires of His heart. We will not want any to perish but all to come to salvation. We will have a burden for the lost. We will have a cause to make sure the name of the Lord is exalted. We will have a holy reverence for His Word. James writes about this principle:
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. - James 4: 3-4 (ESV)
When we are focused on this world for our source of delight, we are desiring in our hearts wrongly. We are actually behaving in an adulterous fashion. Friendship with the world is enmity towards God. The more we align our hearts with the Father's heart, the more our desires will be met because they will match His. That is not accomplished through an act of our will because our flesh wants what our flesh wants. The rich young ruler went away sad because his money was his delight and as a result, was what he desired. Jesus told him to give it all away so there would be no delight nor desire before Him. He tells us the same thing today. Whatever it is that causes us more delight than Him, we need to let it go.
Lastly, when this verse speaks about delighting ourselves in the Lord it is not meant to be apart from His Word. There is an overly emotional, sexualized, and romanticized version of Christianity out there that is not what this verse is speaking about. It is not a matter of telling everyone how much you delight in the Lord. You are not dating Him. In the imagery of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb - you are not the bride. The church as a collective is His bride. In fact, let us look at these verses:
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.- Ephesians 5: 25-27 (ESV)
How are we cleansed? By the washing of water with the Word! There is no delighting yourself in the Lord and marginalizing His Word. It is the Word that shows us the desires of His heart. Delight yourself today in the Lord and see that He is good!
Rev. Anthony.
