Text: “I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is
within my heart.”
Psalm 40:8.
Good morning,
willing Christian! You experience more
consistently the pure delight of the Living Lord God for one essential reason –
you are more consistently seeking to do His Divine will, as taught and
directed in God’s Word. God’s Word IS
His Divinely revealed and Spiritually illuminated will. Praise God for His empowerment to desire to
do God’s will in our lives, daily!
Hallelujah! Thy will be done, O
Lord God!
When praying the
great model prayer Christ taught His disciples to pray, known to us today as
‘The Pater Noster’ or ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ – we find the text from Psalm 40:8
being both sought and prayed for to be done in our daily lives as sincere
followers of Christ Jesus.
“…Thy will be done
in earth, as it is in Heaven.” (Matthew
6:10)
“I delight to do
Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:8)
A ‘delight’
to do God’s will does not come from within the heart of natural man, fallen in
grace in Adam, and unregenerate, ‘…dead in trespasses and sins…’. No.
Natural man, who has not been ‘quickened’ by God the Holy Spirit, has no
delight in seeking to do the will of Almighty God, but is alienated from Him by
sin and the love of committing it continually!
There is nothing good, or of good will, in the heart of the unsaved
man/woman. Since Adam’s fall into sin,
all humankind are born under that sin, and have a natural tendency to commit
sin and be disobedient to the Commandments of the Lord God.
We do NOT have to
teach little children to be disobedient, they do so naturally, and from the
very earliest age. We DO have to
instruct children in obedience – both socially and Spiritually. Otherwise we leave them to the mercy of their
own fallen nature which will very quickly pull them down into the gravest
troubles and grief.
“The heart is
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked…” (Jeremiah 17:9)
“But the natural
man/woman receiveth (takes in, nor will ever take in) not the things of the
Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him/her: neither can he know them,
because they are Spiritually discerned.”
(1 Corinthians 2:14)
“Train up a child
in the way he/she should go: and when he/she is old, he/she will not depart
from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
I often personally
find that, while studying the Word of God in my KJV Bible, I can get a fuller
meaning by reversing the order of the verse as it is written. For example: our text for this morning’s
Bible Lesson reads: “I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within
my heart.” However, IF one reverses the
this sentence, it becomes thus: “Thy law is within my heart (therefore) I
delight to do Thy will, O my God.”
In other words, IF
God’s law, as taught in God’s Word, is taken into one’s heart (our deep inner
being, not the great blood-pump we each have!) – then it causes us to really
‘delight to do it’! We are actually
learning the way to do things in our lives, and finding great joy, delight, in
following the path we already know is correct.
Hallelujah!
Hear John Flavel’s
exposition and conclusion on this verse and its concept:
“Verse 8. I delight to do Thy will, O my God. Did
Christ find pleasure in abasement and torment, in suffering and dying for me,
and can I find no pleasure in praying, hearing, meditating, and enjoying the
sweet duties of communion with Him? Did
He come so cheerfully to die for me, and do I go so dead-heartedly to payers
and sacraments to enjoy fellowship with Him?
Was it a pleasure to Him to shed His Blood, and is it none to me to
apply it, and reap the benefits of it?
“Oh, let there be
no more grumblings, lazy excuses, shiftings of duty, or dead-hearted and
listless performances of them, after such an example as this. Be ready to do the will of God; be ye also
ready to suffer it. And as to sufferings
for Christ, they should not be grievous to Christians that know how cheerfully
Christ came from the bosom of the Father to die for them.
“What have we to
leave or lose in comparison; there was more bitterness in one of His sufferings
than in a sea of ours. To conclude: your
delight and readiness in the paths of obedience is the very measure of your
sanctification.” (Condensed from John
Flavel -1627-1691)
Oh that the Spirit
of God would infuse us, in this latter-day 21st Century Church, with
even half the passion for Christ that the Puritans and believers of earlier
history had!
Verse 8. “Yea, Thy
law is within my heart. No outward form of devotion was rendered
by Christ; His heart was in His work, holiness was His element, the father’s
will His meat and drink. We must each of
us be like our Lord in this, or we shall lack the evidence of being His
disciples. Where there is no heart work,
no pleasure, no delight in God’s law, there can be no acceptance.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 195)
“He (Christ) was
as willing to bleed and die for thee as thou art to eat when hungry. He was delighted as much to be scourged,
wounded, Crucified, as thou delightest in meat, when most delicious.” (David Clarkson 1622-1686)
Thought: Is serving the risen Christ a real ‘delight’ to us, or
begrudged as a task? Let us renew our
determination to get out there and proclaim Christ’s Gospel!
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