“Delight thyself also in the LORD: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” – Psalm 37:4

Everyone wants to enjoy life and those who don’t generally have an excuse. Most of the time they blame others or circumstances for their misery, but our text places the responsibility squarely on our shoulders — “Delight ‘yourself‘ in the Lord”. We can’t control or change our circumstances, but we can control our response to them. As Christian we can always “rejoice in the Lord”  (Phil. 4:4).

Adrian Rogers said, “This verse doesn’t mean you’ll have every whim and fancy met—that you can have an island paradise somewhere, a pink Cadillac, or a handful of diamonds. It means when you delight yourself in the Lord, what your heart has really been seeking for, it will find. What your heart really yearns for is God. Only Jesus can meet the deepest needs of your heart.

Do you know why so often we live in fear? Because we think our needs are not going to be met. Or because we think the things we believe are meeting our needs are going to be taken away from us. This verse tells us God will never leave us nor forsake us, and godliness with contentment is great gain. We have something that can’t be tampered with.

Suppose someone were to go into your house and carry out all your material possessions. Could you still praise the Lord? If your delight is in the Lord, you could!”

“And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.”–Luke 9:57–58

Each year the Oxford English Dictionary selects a Word of the Year as a way of recognizing a new word that has entered the language and made an impact. In a rare decision, 2013 saw the unanimous selection of “selfie” as the Word of the Year. The ubiquitous smart phones with their cameras have sparked a craze of self-portraits. The Oxford English Dictionary publishers released a statement saying, “It seems everyone has posted a selfie somewhere on the Internet.” There are few more apt metaphors for our society—including within much of the church—than our obsession with placing ourselves in the center of the picture.

The example of Jesus is very different. While He deserves all the glory of the universe, He willingly gave up not just immeasurable riches but even basic comforts and necessities to follow the will of His Father in Heaven. How tightly we cling to our rights and privileges, and how unfair we think it is when things don’t go exactly as we think they should! Our response to disruption in our plans and schedules says so much about who is in charge of our lives.

Henry Drummond said, “The entrance fee into the kingdom of heaven is nothing: the annual subscription is everything.” Those who would follow Jesus must first count the cost and determine if they are willing to pay the price of selfless living. The footsteps of Jesus will not lead us to a path of ease. And if we are focused on what makes us happy and comfortable, we will find His path too hard to keep walking.–Daily in the Word

“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”–Phil. 4:19

Oh! if there were no Christ Jesus, there could be no “supply.” Howling in hell would our miserable souls be, unless there were a Mediator at the right hand of the Father; a blessed Jesus, full of love, pity, and power, co-equal and co-eternal in his divine nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and yet the God-Man, in whom “it has pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell.”

If there were not such a blessed Mediator at the right hand of God, not one drop of spiritual comfort, not one particle of hope, not one grace or fruit of the Spirit to distinguish us from the damned in hell, would ever be our lot or portion. Oh! we should never forget the channel through which these mercies come; we should never, for one moment, think that they could come through any other Person or in any other way, than through God’s only begotten Son, now in our nature, at his right hand, as our Advocate, Mediator, and Intercessor with the Father.

And this supply is “according to the riches of his glory;” which is, I believe, a Hebrew idiom, signifying his glorious riches—riches so great, so unlimited, so unfathomable, raising up the soul to such a height of glory, that they may well be called “glorious.” And these “in Christ Jesus;” stored up in him, locked up in him, and supplied freely out of him, just according to the needs and exercises of God’s people.–J. C. Philpot

“He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.“–Psalms 91:15

Grace is God drawing sinners closer and closer to him. How does God in grace prosecute this purpose? Not by shielding us from assault by the work, the flesh, and the devil, nor by protecting us from burdensome and frustrating circumstance, not yet by shielding us from troubles created by our own temperament and psychology, but rather by exposing us to all these things, so as to overwhelm us with a sense of our own inadequacy, and to drive us to cling to him more closely.

This is the ultimate reason, from our standpoint, why God fills our lives with troubles and perplexities of one sort and another — it is to ensure that we shall learn to hold him fast. The reason why the Bible spends so much of its time reiterating that God is a strong rock, a firm defense, and a sure refuge and help for the weak is that God spends so much of his time showing us that we are weak, both mentally and morally, and dare not trust ourselves to find or follow the right road. When we walk along a clear road feeling fine, and someone takes our arm to help us, likely we would impatiently shake him off; but when we are caught in rough country in the dark, with a storm brewing and our strength spent, and someone takes our arm to help us, we would thankfully lean on him. And God wants us to feel that our way through life is rough and perplexing, so that we may learn to lean on him thankfully. Therefore he takes steps to drive us out of self-confidence to trust in himself, to — in the classic scriptural phrase for the secret of the godly man’s life — “wait on the Lord.”–James Packer

“ I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.” Psalm 39:9

“Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

This stillness and silence befits us, when God lifts up His arm to afflict us. It is of little use at such times to struggle against His almighty power–to be restless and complaining when His heavy hand is laid upon us. Our wisdom is . . .
to bear the burden which oppresses us with patience,
to submit cheerfully to the will of God, and
to kiss the painful rod which scourges us.

We should remember that our Father does not afflict His children willingly, that is, for His own pleasure–but for their profit. He loves them; and when He punishes them, it is for their discipline, and to make them what He would have them to be–partakers of His holiness.

We should look at our afflictions in this light–and not let a murmur escape our lips! Our language should be, “It is the Lord–let Him do what seems good to Him!” 1 Samuel 3:18

It is often our duty, in the hour of trial or of difficulty, to be still, to lie passive in God’s hands, “to hope, and quietly to wait for the salvation of the Lord.”–Ashton Oxenten