Today's Bible Reading: PSALM 35-38
Carte Blanche
Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Delight dictates desires. What you delight in will determine your direction. It will set your course. It will specify your pursuits. It will prescribe your path. What you find delight in will even control what you seek and strive for. It will guide your wants and needs. It will govern what you ask for.
Here the Psalmist prescribes a pursuit that will procure a promise. Those who resolve to delight in the Lord will receive the desires of their heart. If our pursuit is to delight in Him, then His promise is to give us our heart’s desires. The reasoning is simple. Our delighting in the Lord will make us disposed to desire those things that delight Him. Our plea coincides with His passion. Our request becomes regulated not by our frivolous fancies, but by what brings about His favor. We desire what He desires.
Delighting in the Lord entails being enthralled in knowing Him, encompassed in His word, enraptured in worshiping Him and engaged in doing His will. These combined together identify those individuals that identity with Him. Our delight in the Lord is demonstrated in our delight in seeking Him, serving Him and sharing about Him. Our whole being wholly pursues Him.
Those who delight in Him act like Him. Delighting in Him distinguishes us and defines us. It declares us different from a world that despises Him. Entering into a relationship with the Lord redirects our delights and thus our desires. Now we desire to emulate and imitate Him. Our heart’s desire is the desire of His heart. His passion becomes our passion. What He is concerned about concerns us. Those He cares about are those we care about. What He is about is what we are about. His loves become our loves. His life is fused into our life. Our pursuit is to delight ourselves in the Lord. Our aim is to be conformed into the image of Jesus.
Those who delight in the Lord ask like Him. Delighting in Him meshes His desires with ours. Our thoughts are shaped by His truth. His Word develops our will and directs our way. This leads us to want what He wants. So, we ask for what He would ask for. We ask according to His will. Jesus clearly delighted in His Father. He said, “For I have come down from heaven, not to my own will but the will of him who sent me.” (John 6:38). His prayer life reflected this. He prayed in the garden just before His death saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, Nevertheless, not my will but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42). Jesus delighted in doing the will of His father and as such He prayed according to the desires of His Father. He pursued the Father and received the promise of the Father.
We have this promise from antiquity available to us. If our delight is in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart. If our wants line up with His will, we will receive our request. John puts it this way, “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him”. (1 John 5:14-15). When our desires coincide with His desires, He will give us what we desire. So, find your delight in Him by taking a deep dive into His word. Discover in them His desires, than make them your own. Pursue Him and receive His promise.
Today thank God for the carte blanche promise that is available to us. Ask Him to help you to delight in Him. Ask Him to help you know Him and how to please Him. Ask Him to make His will your way of life. Ask Him to help you only ask of Him for those things that align with His Word and are according to His will. Thank Him that as you delight in Him, He will give you the desires of your heart.
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