October 30 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Psalm 37:1–6

Devotional

“Delight yourself in the LORD” (Psalm 37:4)

These words must seem very surprising to those who are strangers to vital godliness. But to the sincere believer it is only the repetition of a recognized truth. The believer’s life is described here as a delight in God. In this way God reassures us of the great fact that true religion overflows with happiness and joy.

Ungodly persons and those who merely profess Christ outwardly never see religion as a joyful thing. To them it is service; it is duty; or it is necessity. But it is never pleasure or delight. If they pay attention to religion at all, it is either that they may somehow gain in this way or else because they are afraid to do otherwise. The thought of delight in religion is so strange to most people that no two words in their language stand further apart than “holiness” and “delight.”

But believers who know Jesus Christ understand that delight and faith are so blessedly united that the gates of hell cannot succeed in separating them. Those who love God with all their hearts find that his ways are ways of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace. The saints discover such joys, such brimful delights, such overflowing blessednesses in their Lord that, far from serving him from custom, they will follow him even if the whole rest of the world casts out his name as evil. We do not fear God because of any compulsion; our faith is no fetter; our profession is no bondage; we are not dragged to holiness nor driven to duty. No, our piety is our pleasure, our hope is our happiness, our duty is our delight.

Delight and true faith are as closely united as root and flower; they are as indivisible as truth and certainty; they are, in fact, two sides of a precious gold coin.

“And when we taste thy love,
our joys divinely grow,
unspeakable, like those above,
and heaven begins below.”
(Isaac Watts)

[June 14, morning meditation]

Extracted from C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening (public domain), language modernized by Larry E. Wilson.