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 GOD'S DESIRES

Psalm 37:4

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

This passage from God’s Word has been used, abused, and misused for a long time. Some have abused it by saying that “if” we “delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us whatever our little hearts desires. Some have misused it as some kind of works-formula that if we do this, God is obligated to do that.

I don’t think that is what is being revealed by the Lord to us.

To “delight ourselves in the Lord” is to have Him be the One thing to which we devote the whole of life to. It is to see Him as the source of all goodness and hope. It is to know Him as Life, itself. It is to believe Him to be Who He says He is: our Good Shepherd, the Lord and giver of Life, our armor for the battle, the power and anointing we need to follow Him and keep in step with the Holy Spirit.

Delighting in the Lord indicates the surrender of all we are, all we steward, all abilities and gifts given to Him without reserve for Him to live in and through them as He wills. Truth is, we don’t know HOW to live the new life we have been given in Christ Jesus apart from Him living that new life within and through us. Following Jesus Christ is not our old life rearranged and religiously polished up. It is a brand-new thing. Old things have passed away, having been cut away by the Hand of God in an unalterable spiritual “circumcision” where our old sin nature is cut away, removed.

Surrendering to the love, mercy, forgiveness, and grace of God in Jesus Christ our eyes are opened more and more to see the everlasting, never stopping, overwhelming, almighty love of God for us in Jesus. We need God to transform in us what we have heretofore considered worthy of desire. The flesh, that residue of our old, discarded sin nature, had for years trained and deceived our minds, wills, and emotions and even our bodies into thinking we need more than what God provides. Satan wants us to have divided hearts and the flesh colludes to try and keep sin alive in us. But we are no longer slaves of sin. We are under new management and ownership.

As we seek the Lord and His Kingdom rule over every dimension of life; as we seek the Lord as the one and only thing to which we devote ourselves, we will find Him transforming every aspect of life. We find Him changing our “wanter” and will find Him IMPLANTING His desires in our hearts. The Lord God knows what will result in our becoming our best selves, and as we surrender, I believe we can look forward to Him GIVING US THE DESIRES OF OUR HEARTS…putting in us His own desires so that we might live out the new life He has given us.

God’s desires for us, His will, is the only thing that will give true meaning and purpose to every follower of Jesus Christ. The Lord is the only One worthy of our being delighted in, grateful to, and yielded to in responsive love and faith.




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