Some time ago, I was listening to a group of well-known pastors talking about the importance of delighting yourself in the Lord, and He will give us the desires of our heart (Psalm 37:4). In their opinion, it meant to delight yourself in Jesus for He is the Lord and delight yourself in what He has done for us at the cross. When I heard them, I was reminded how I used to believe that and how frustrated I used to get when I did delight in Jesus and what He had done for me, but I never got the desires of my heart.
Psalm 37:4 is a well-known promise and a fantastic promise, as well. Here we have God telling us He will give us the desires of our heart if we delight in Him. Who would not want that? And we all know it is easy to delight ourselves in Jesus, considering what He has done for us. Everywhere we turn, especially now in the Christmas season, everything we hear is about delighting ourselves in God’s gift to humanity Jesus Christ.
It is not wrong to delight yourself in the gift given to us in Jesus (His Hebrew name is Yeshua). But who among you can honestly say you have seen the fulfillment of Psalm 37:4 in your life? Most of us would have to admit we have been blessed but not precisely seen the desires of our hearts so far.
Psalm 37:4 says, Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Because this is in the book of Psalms and it is speaking about the Lord, we know it is not referring to Yeshua. It is referring to His Father Yehovah. So what Psalm 37:4 is saying is this, delight yourself in Yehovah, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
When the group of well-known “famous” pastors believed delighting yourself in the Lord is the same as delighting yourself in Jesus, they were wrong. When our pastors, preachers, and evangelists are telling us this Christmas season to “delight yourself in Jesus, and He will give you the desires of your heart,” they are wrong. The Bible does not promise us the desires of our heart if we delight ourselves in Jesus.
The Bible promises the desires of our heart if we delight ourselves in Yehovah.
“How is this relevant for me, a new testament Christian living under grace?”
The Bible says in 1. John 2:6 and James 2:10-26, if we want salvation and be united with Christ, we have to imitate His life. At no point did Yeshua delight Himself in Himself, He always delighted Himself in His Father Yehovah because they are one.
So if we want salvation and be united with Christ, we have to do what He did and delight ourselves in Yehovah.
How do we delight ourselves in Yehovah?
What did Yeshua do?
The Bible says Yehovahs law, the Torah (which we call the written law of Moses), was the desire and joy of Yeshua. Yeshua delighted Himself in the Torah because He knew the Torah is Yehovah’s law. Yeshua loved, protected, and upheld the Torah, rebuked the Pharisees who had stopped obeying the Torah in favor of human tradition.
Yeshua delighted Himself in Yehovah by obeying, loving, protection, upholding the Torah. This is why Yehovah gave Him the desires of His heart, and the Bible promises us if we imitate His life, we will get the desires of our hearts.
But most Christians dont want to have anything to do with the Torah or with Yehovah. They believe the Torah is a burden, done away with at the cross, impossible to obey, or even sinful.
Is it any wonder we have a lot of frustrated Christians delighting themselves in Yeshua but never seeing the desires of their hearts?
Is it any wonder the Bible says there will be a lot of Christians in hell one day? (Matt 7:21-23)