7. The Palace Of Blessing   Psalm 1:1-3 part 7

We’re Designed by our Desires & Determined by our Delights

Saturate in Your Blessings v.1  Blessed is the man

  Direct Our Steps that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly

  Determine Our Stands              nor stands in the way of sinners

  Defend Our Surroundings         nor sits in the seat of the scornful 

Saturate us in Your Beauty v.2

  Delight Us in Your Satisfaction  But his delight

  Delight Us In Your Structure      is in the law of the Lord

  Drench Us In Your Speech           and in his law doth he meditate

  Delight Us in Your Schedule       day and night 

Delight Us in Your Satisfaction   But his delight 

All earthly delights are but “streams”. But God is the ocean.

Jonathan Edwards

Delight is a search of desire, and what we are trying to capture is pleasurable gratification.  We may find ourselves on a quest for health, or a sense of wellbeing and strength that we all normally crave after?  Or it could be any number of fads or even obsessions.   It’s interesting that energy drinks are one of the crazes of our day.  We lose tone, conditioning and are easily knocked out of shape.  Then we want a potion to kick-start the dilemma.

Psalms 37:4 alerts us to the Lord’s solution of what we are all trying to seize.

Delight your self in the Lord. And He will give us the desires of our heart.  

The delight and desire of our heart is the Lord.  Feeling His loving acceptance, is the condition of our inner being exposure to His presence.

But there is this fear of rejection.  It is as if dread and delight coexist.  I think that is always an obstacle.  But the dread is more a tendency to cover up from exposure.  I’m referring to the dread of being visible, the disappointment of grief, and the depression of regret, sorrow and loneliness.  We push it away with amusements, which is the opposite of musing and meditation.  We refuse to think and we think we are gaining rest and relaxation in the clutter.

We can’t unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure or the wheat from the tares.  But Jesus can and He will and does.  And we have to be unclothed of self and all it’s pretentions and pain to be clothed upon by His Spirit.  So real delight is bringing every aspect of our self to Jesus, all the stress, loss and heartache.

Listening for God’s voice and communicating in our inadequacies back to Him in longing prayer is where our heart can rest.  Not in some feeling of delight and pleasant emotions that ebb and flow, but in realness of pleasure and delight in God accepting us as we are and our experiencing His grace.  He receives our prayers as we learn His voice and this is meditation of delight in Him.

Taking each thing God has said, each word the Lord has written to us, treasuring His testimonies and truths and basking in them as our own personal love feast.

Then we hope for others to love what we love, to value Jesus and His words along with us.  To join us, pray with no masks to Him, and to delight in our delights and multiply in His blessing together.

So the relationship of delight is when we delight in the Word of God and find our pleasure in His expressions; then He delights in our prayer to Him.

Prov.15:8 the prayer of the upright is His delight.   

This is such a motivation to pray, because we bring delight to God’s heart when we bow to Him, humble ourselves and express our dependence and need.  This is adoration and love, our affection of being drawn by the Lord and His delight for us in drawing us out.  The Spirit excites us to pray,

Calvin wrote, “Unceasing continuance in prayer is the remedy to fatigue”.

Are we only giving limited time to thinking over God’s loving expressions to us and do we offer only limited abbreviated expressions to Him in pray?  The Lord is jealous of our time spent with Him and wants our undivided attention.

In Gal.5:16 we read that the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: 

The word lust means to long for, desire after and delight in.  We walk in the Spirit by allowing His jealousy for us to win, His longing after us to conquer us, His desire in us to be our everything.  We can find our all in delight by sharing our feelings with Him and allowing this to be our excitement and pleasure.

Should we spend increasing time with Christ?  Should we be listening for His voice, pouring over His Word to hear Him?  Is it of value to pour our feelings out to Him, tell Him all our thoughts and let Him in on everything?  The conclusion is obvious.  How much do we need Him?  Sure He knows everything, but His delight is our yielding and asking Him into every need, lifting our voices to Him adoringly, enjoying all He is, and telling Him that our pleasure is involvement.

What a wonder that He would honor us as we honor Him.