Morning, June 14
Go To Evening Reading
“Delight thyself also in the Lord.”
Psalm 37:4
The teaching of these words must seem very surprising to those who
are strangers to vital godliness, but to the sincere believer it is
only the inculcation of a recognized truth. The life of the believer
is here described as a delight in God, and we are thus certified of the great fact that true religion
overflows with happiness and joy. Ungodly persons and mere professors
never look upon religion as a joyful thing; to them it is service,
duty, or necessity, but never pleasure or delight. If they attend
to religion at all, it is either that they may gain thereby, or else
because they dare not do otherwise. The thought of delight in religion is so strange to most men, that no two words in their
language stand further apart than “holiness” and “delight.” But believers who know Christ, understand that delight and faith
are so blessedly united, that the gates of hell cannot prevail to
separate them. They who love God with all their hearts, find that
his ways are ways of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace. Such
joys, such brimful delights, such overflowing blessednesses, do the
saints discover in their Lord, that so far from serving him from custom,
they would follow him though all the world cast out his name as evil.
We fear not 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 religion are as allied as root and flower; as indivisible
as truth and certainty; they are, in fact, two precious jewels glittering
side by side in a setting of gold.
“'Tis when we taste thy love,
Our joys divinely grow,
Unspeakable like those above,
And heaven begins below.”