Delight Yourself in the Lord

God knows our deepest and most enduring source of joy and pleasure is found in Him.

Delight in the Lord requires us to find displeasure in the flesh.

Self-gratification is the enemy of finding pleasure in God.

I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.Psalm 40:8

Self-gratification makes you a slave to your sinful desires.

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.Romans 8:5

As we delight ourselves in the Lord, He changes the desires of our heart.

God doesn’t give us the desires of our carnal heart. That would be idolatry.

“Our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We’re half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition. When infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum, because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

CS Lewis

God gives what is good to those who walk in obedience.

For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.Psalm 84:11

If I seek God more than anything else, I will eventually seek more of what God wants for me, and be content with that.

The LORD upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down. The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them.Psalm 145:14-19

As we delight ourselves in the Lord, He becomes the desire of our heart.

Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.Psalm 73:23-26

When we delight in the Lord, we don’t seek God as a means to an end. He is the end. He is what our heart craves.

One of Satan’s greatest deceptions is that happiness, fulfillment and pleasure can only be found apart from God.

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:Genesis 3:1-4

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.Matthew 4:8-9

Our flesh buys into the lie that whatever is being withheld from us is unfair.

But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.1 Samuel 15:9

And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.1 Samuel 15:15

We often misjudge what our heart truly desires.

We pursue what we think about.

We must see the riches of Jesus and acknowledge the bankruptcy of the world.