How To Delight Thyself in the Lord Is. 58:13-14 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO
Ps 37:4 says, “Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” When you delight thyself in the Lord he gives you the desires, not the things you desire. In other words, when you find satisfaction in the Lord, he puts the desires in your heart for the things that will continue to cause you to find pleasure in Him.
But the question is, “How to delight thyself in the Lord?” To delight thyself in the Lord you must follow the spiritual admonition of Is 58:13-14. You must quit four things according to this text and when you quit these four things you will begin to delight thyself in the Lord. You must:
Quit skipping church – Is 58:13 – this is an Old Testament text in which the Lord commanded Israel to turn away from “doing thy pleasure on my holy day.” I realize that the Sabbath is a Jewish day and that Israel was commanded to keep holy the Sabbath. I also realize that we don’t keep the Sabbath. However, we do go to church on Sunday. When you dedicate that day of the week to the Lord by being in services in the morning and in the evening and by refraining from doing your own pleasure on that day, God blesses you. He changes the desires of your heart so that you delight more in Him than you do in the things you wanted to do or thought you needed to do on Sunday.
Quit doing your own ways – Is 58:13 – the Lord said in Is 55:8 “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” The trouble with Christians today is that they want their own way. They’re like little children. Church has to cater to them. The Lord has to cater to them. They want to go their own way and they don’t want anyone to reprove them or instruct them concerning the error of their way. You need to stop doing your own way. You need to find the ways of the Lord and do those. His ways are the ways of holiness, sacrifice, service, prayer, humility, charity, faith, separation, suffering and so forth. Spoiled Christians know nothing about these ways. But Christians who do know about these ways and walk in them have found delight in the Lord which is far superior to any temporal pleasure.
Quit finding your own pleasure – Is 58:13 – as long as you are determined to find your own pleasure, you are more prone to be a lover of pleasures than a lover of God. That is the problem in these perilous times; Christians are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. But if you quit finding your own pleasure and live to please God instead [Heb 11:5] a remarkable thing happens. You begin to delight in the Lord and find more pleasure in him than in any pleasure you pursued before [Ps 16:11].
Quit speaking your own words – Is 58:13 – you and I don’t know enough to keep speaking our own words. God knows everything and we’d be much better off to be swift to hear and slow to speak [Jas 1:19]. There is nothing as comical and disgusting as reading comments after blog postings on line. You have never seen so much pride, arrogance and ignorance in one place!! The Lord said that if you would honor him “not speaking thine own words,” then you would delight thyself in the Lord. You just love to comment and hear yourself speak too much. You can hardly hear what others have to say because you are too intent on coming up with what to say next. As a result, you haven’t been listening to God at all. And when you don’t hear him, you don’t delight in him. Learn to read and listen to his words. Learn to listen to preaching that feeds your spirit. When you do that you will delight thyself in the Lord.
Conclusion: there is nothing better and more pleasing on earth than to delight thyself in the Lord. And as you delight in the Lord and he gives you desires in your heart to delight more in him, you just grow closer and closer to him and find more and more pleasure in him. It’s like the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” says, “the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”