How do you delight yourself? What do your posts to social media expose about your delights? Jesus said, “where you treasure is there you heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21) He said these words right before speaking about anxiety and worry which can be the enemies of delight.
God makes it clear throughout scripture that our delight should be in Him. Psalm 119, the longest book, chapter, and song in the Bible, is all about finding our delight in God through His word. Over and over again for 176 verses, the psalmist says things like, *I will delight myself in Your statues, ordinances, laws, testimonies, commandments, precepts, and words.*God has the psalmist declare delight in every aspect of all God has revealed about Himself through scripture.
However, for us to truly delight in His word, it must start with a desire to delight in God himself. If our delight does not start with a delight for God himself, we will end up using His words for our selfish delights. God had John the apostle write, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created. Life was in Him, and that life was the light of men.” (John 1:1-4) God created the earth with His words.(Genesis 1:3) Life for humanity came through and is found in the words of God.
God makes it clear in John 1 that Jesus is “The Word." There is a DIRECT correlation between loving the words of God and loving Jesus who is The Word. Jesus came and lived in perfect delight and integrity to the scriptures. We find Him at age 12 being lost in His desire for God His Father and His word.(Luke 2:41-52) Jesus quoted scripture continually. We find Him withdrawing from the crowd to be in the scriptures often praying the words of scripture back to God the Father. He even said “Don’t assume that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.”(Matthew 5:17)
Jesus Himself fulfilled all the words of scripture because He is the Word. Through His life, death, resurrection, ascension, and eventual return, Jesus proves that everything He ever spoke and asked people to write were the words of life to us from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for our delight. If we don’t know Jesus, then we don’t know the word, and we will never find lasting delight.
When our girls were old enough (middle to upper elementary) my wife had the genius idea of reading through the entire Bible with our kids for evening family devotions. We did not skip ANY parts. We were not legalistic but very committed. It took us a little over 2 years. We did the New Testament one year and the Old Testament the next. Our girls, now adults, still remember doing it. They found great delight in saying they had read through the entire Bible. Be prepared for a lot of questions from the text (like Judah and Tamar). Be prepared for them to be distracted. Be prepared for them to delight in the story. We learned that it was okay to say, “we don’t know the answer” or “we can discuss that later.” Often, the questions they would ask would stick with me. It would cause me to study and go to God even more. It helped us all find our delight in Him through His word.
Over the years I have had the privilege of helping people discover how to delight in God through His word. I use a simple pattern to help. Choose a passage of scripture and then ask...
...GOD, MAN, ME, DO
Delighting in the person of God, shown in the Word of God, for the glory of God, is the ultimate delight of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Let's take time to delight ourselves together with the godhead.
Where is your delight? Open the word and Take time to delight yourself…
(all references from the HCSB)
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