Passion, Desire and Delight

(Disclaimer: this is more than 75 words.)

 Delight yourself in the Lord, 

and He will give you the desires of your heart.  

~Psalm 37:4

Many quote this verse, assuming it says:

Delight yourself in your natural passions and desires,

and claim the blessing of God on them.

He will surely indulge your wishes

because He loves you.

However, it does not say that.

It says:

Delight yourself in the Lord.

It's another way of looking at the Greatest Commandment:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. 

(Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27)

Which is a restatement of the First Commandment:

You shall have no other gods before me. 

(Exodus 20:2)

To love anything more than we love God is to commit idolatry, which is spiritual adultery, a serious and potentially deadly sin.

You adulterous people!  

Don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? (James 4:4)

Anytime we take hold of a besetting sin and cosset it, excuse it, cherish it, insist that it is an integral part of who we are, we are denying the power of Christ to deliver us as He promised.

He never said it would be easy.  

He said, "Take up your cross daily and follow me," (Luke 9:23).  

Take up your cross.  Daily.  Persevering.  

Take up your cross.

Then Jesus invites us to come to Him when we are weary and tired of carrying the heavy load, because He will give us rest.  He will help us.  He already carried The Cross, and He will come under our crosses too, supporting us with everlasting arms as we carry the weight, making the burden light.  (See Deuteronomy 33:27, Matthew 11:28-30)

But we must love Jesus above all.  We must delight in Him more than anything, far more.  We must listen to His voice and abide in His Spirit, and believe Him when He tells us that something will get in the way of our fellowship with Him.  We must perceive that He is everything--He is life itself--and anything that erodes our unity with Him is a serious danger. 

Like the man who found the treasure in the field 

and then joyfully went and sold everything he had 

so he could purchase the field, 

which was vastly superior to anything he was giving up (Matthew 13:44), 

we must delight in the Lord.

Delight in the Lord, for He is worthy of all glory and honor and praise.

There is no good thing apart from Him (Psalm 16:2).  

He is the one who makes known the path of life, in whose presence is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11). 

If we would be united with Christ through His Spirit,

if we would be His beloved bride,

then we must forswear all the places we sought satisfaction 

when we lived according to the flesh, 

and look to Him only to meet our every need.  

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want of anything (Psalm 23:1).

We must not accept His grace and then tell Him, "But I have this other thing I need to keep if I am to feel whole and happy, this thing besides you.  Since you want me to be happy, I know you will not mind if I bring this other thing into our relationship."

That is like a wife saying to her husband, "I know you love me so much, you will not mind if I bring this other fellow into bed with us at night.  I love you very much, but I cannot be satisfied unless I have him beside me, too."

May it never be!  God forgive us for our divided hearts, show us where we go astray, and help us turn back to YOU.

Check out 1 Corinthians 6:12-20.  Read it and ponder it both on the literal level, and as a metaphor for spiritual adultery.  It is true on every level.

//(Note as of 4/7/2021 -- I have given up writing posts of 75 words or less.  I am not a good enough writer to keep that up.)//