“DELIGHT YOURSELF in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalms 37:4)
A wonderful and great promise: God will give us the desires of our heart. But we have a this command: “DELIGHT (‛ânag: easily giving in to God’s will.) YOURSELF IN THE LORD”. The command is the condition of the promise. So delight yourself in me, God says, and I will SATISFY YOUR HEART.
We may ask: Should I pursue joy or should I pursue obedience? Well “That’s like saying, ‘Should I pursue apples or should I pursue fruit,’ because if you obey the command — “Delight yourself in the Lord” — you are pursuing joy, so obedience and joy can’t be contrasted like that. We are called upon to delight ourselves in the Lord. And here is a big problem for a lot of people. You can’t enjoy a God that you are NOT SURE IS FOR YOU. If the devil is whispering in your ear — “God is against me”, “God is always disappointed in me”, “God is not going to accept me” — then to try to work up delight in a God like that is going to be impossible.
Therefore, let’s look at (Isaiah 53:6), “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way.” And that sounds like: Well, we are in trouble with God. But then He adds, “And the Lord has laid ON HIM THE INIQUITY OF US ALL.” Which means, already in the Old Testament we are being taught that we have a Savior. We have a substitute. We have Jesus, a Christ, and a Messiah who has BORN ALL OF OUR SINS. So now when we are commanded — “Delight yourself in the Lord” — we are standing on a very firm foundation of ACCEPTANCE. God is ON OUR SIDE. He LOVES US, which means WE ARE FREE. We can lay all that aside and just look at His beauties and be UTTERLY, DEEPLY and PROFOUNDLY HAPPY in what we have become, because it is TOTALLY THERE FOR US.
-Bill Stockham