Delight Pure & Simple, The First and Great Commandment

Delight, Pure and Simple

The great and first commandment

Matthew 22.37, 38

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”

Psalm 37.4

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

How’s your time with God?

What affections do you associate with “delight”? For me, delight involves such things as joy, peace, contentment, keen interest, and a certain reluctance to get on with something else. Sad, but for many people today, the order of our Scripture might well be reversed: delight in all the things you want, and you’ll find God. But that’s idolatry. If we delight in the Lord – find joy and peace with Him, know contentment in His present, are keenly interested in Him and reluctant to move away from Him – then what do you suppose we’ll desire? More of Him, of course! And He’s more than willing to give us more of Himself, as long as we delight in Him as we should. Delight is yet another indication of love for the Lord. Do you simply enjoy being with Him? Is that just your favorite time of the day? Do you have lots of fond memories from the time you spend with the Lord? Do you go to bed at night looking forward to getting up to be with Him again? Seeking the Lord flows out of delighting in Him, which is the fruit of seeking Him, and a sure way of knowing just how much we love Him.

Do you see any attention-getting practices in your own behavior? Why do we do this? How really important can it possibly be that everyone is looking at us all the time?

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“In the Gates” is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001,2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.