Russell A. Cardwell Online

Delight Yourself

by Russell Cardwell @ 10:21 am. Filed under Epiphanies. [add to del.icio.us]

Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
—Psalm 37:4

This doesn’t mean that the Lord will buy you a Mercedes Benz. If the desires of your heart are material things, then you are not delighting yourself in the Lord: you are delighting yourself in the world.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
—Romans 12:1-2

If, instead, you give yourself—body, mind, heart and soul—to God as a living sacrifice, as it says in Romans 12:1, then Romans 12:2 will naturally follow. You will be reshaped by God: your mind will no longer fit the mold of this world, but will be transformed to more closely reflect the mind of God. You will become more Christlike. You will be “clothed in Christ.”

And when that transformation takes place, the desires of your heart will be to please God and to carry out his purposes in the world. Then it will be God’s pure joy to give you all you ask of him and to ensure that your plans will succeed.

Someone once said that all true pleasure comes from God—all the world can offer are diversions. I have found that when I am enthralled by the stuff of the world—people, places, and things—nothing satisfies: my inmost longings go unfulfilled. Blaise Pascal said, “There is a God shaped-vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known by Jesus Christ.” When I “seek first the Kingdom of Heaven,” I find that God’s provision more than satisfies. Perhaps it is no accident that the world’s amusements are called diversions.