Do
You ENJOY God?
“The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him
forever.” This answer to the first question of the Westminster Shorter
Catechism recognizes something profound about satisfying our heart longings not
just in the “forever” of eternity, but in
this present life.
John Piper observes,
“One reason lust reigns in so many is that
Christ has so little appeal. You were created to treasure Christ with all
your heart—more than you treasure sex or sugar. If you have little taste for
Jesus, competing pleasures will triumph. Plead with God for the satisfaction
you don’t have. Quote Psalm 90:14, ‘Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we
might rejoice and be glad all our days.’ Then, look, look, LOOK at the most magnificent person in the universe
until you see him the way he is.” (Desiring God)
Our hearts are
designed to need to draw pleasure from knowing God. When we are not
satisfying our souls by finding delight in God, our souls get out of alignment.
Our life veers toward the idols that promise to satisfy our inner
longings—success, approval, prestige, security, affirmation, control, pleasure
(whatever makes us feel good.)
Here are three
thoughts about keeping our hearts aligned by enjoying God:
1) You will never fully enjoy God until you know
how much he enjoys you. If as you come into God’s presence, you
default to believing that his holiness causes you to be loathsome to him
because of your sin, you need to take the gospel from your head to your
heart. God always sees you through the lens of Christ’s righteousness
imputed to you. Always. He does not feel disgust but fatherly delight in
his child. Zephaniah 3:17 tells us The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great
delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with
singing. God not only accepts you, he richly enjoys you. Your
company is his pleasure, your face his delight!
2) A driven life-style crowds out enjoying God.
How ironic. The very purpose for which we are created is pushed aside by
our busyness. Gordon MacDonald says it this way:Our
public worlds are filled with a seeming infinity of demands
upon our time, our loyalties, our money, and our energies. And because
these public worlds of ours are so visible, so real, we have to struggle
to ignore all their seductions and demands. They scream for our attention
and action. The result is that our private world is
often cheated, neglected because it does not shout quite so loudly. It
can be effectively ignored for large periods of time before it gives way to a
sinkhole-like cave-in. (Ordering
Your Private World)
3) Here is a practical idea for enjoying God.
Choose one of God’s perfections: his holiness, justice, faithfulness,
mercy, creativity, goodness, power, love, consistency, righteousness,
compassion, etc. Then tell him how you benefit from that characteristic of his
nature.
Psalm 37:4 gives us
a command for heart alignment that we easily forget, Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your
heart. To “delight ” means to “give your heart pleasure.” May your
heart find great pleasure by being intentional about enjoying God. I can
think of nothing that glorifies God more than our enjoyment of him!
Posted
by Gary Yagel on Sunday, May 19, 2013
Pasted
from <http://www.forgingbonds.org/blog/do_you_enjoy_god/>
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