First Delights

First Delight

Psalm 37:4

What do you delight in? Your answer is a good indicator of where your love and loyalties reside. Most of us know that the first of the Ten Commandments is to "have no other gods before [Him]." An idol in the biblical sense is anything that breaks this command. Examples of idols range from wood carvings and people to abstract concepts like pleasure and power. 

But the command to not place anything before our relationships with God is put in a more beautiful light in Psalm 37:4. It says, Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Quite a promise! If we obey the commandment to delight first in the LORD (see also Matthew 6:33) then there will come transforming blessing. What I mean by this is best explained by clarifying the meaning of the promise. God does not promise to give us all the toys we really want if we go to church and read our Bibles. It means when we delight in the LORD the influence he will have on our desires will be transformational. When we walk with the LORD our delights become his delights and at least in my case that's a big improvement! – Jason Walsh serves as Youth Pastor at Whiting Bible Church

GPS – God’s Positioning System: Ezra 4-6; Psalm 66; Proverbs 9

Compass Pointers: “It is not enough to tell believers, ‘You are accepted through your faith in Christ’.  We must tell them also, ‘You are delivered from the bondages of sin through the power of the indwelling Christ.’  For our consciences are also deeply deluded with respect to the possibility of overcoming the flesh once its dimensions are known.  Even if we are assured that our sin is covered, we do not want to face the despair of having to live in conscious helpless awareness of its tyranny, abusing the grace and forgiveness of Christ.  If we have to go on running further and further into spiritual debt we would rather do this in the dark without realizing what is happening.” Martin Luther

Navigation Rules to Memorize: Level 1: John 7:37-38; Level 2: John 7:37-38

Anchored to the Rock: Sometimes we think we are too busy to pray. That is a great mistake, for praying is a saving of time. C. H. Spurgeon