Delight in Your Circumstances

Delight yourself in the Lord. Psalm 37:4 ESV The teaching of these words must be very surprising to those who are strangers to active godliness. But to the sincere believer it is only the statement of a recognized truth. The life of the believer is described here as a delight in God, and this assures us of the great fact that true religion overflows with happiness and joy. Ungodly people and those who merely profess faith never see religion as a joyful thing—to them it is service, or duty, or necessity, never pleasure or delight. If they apply themselves to religion at all, it is either in hope of gaining something or it is because they dare not 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. Believers, though, who know Christ, understand that delight and faith are so blessedly united that the powers of hell cannot separate them. Those who love God with all their heart find that His ways are pleasant ways, and all His paths are peace (see Proverbs 3:17). Such joy, such abundant delight, such overflowing blessedness, the saints discover in their Lord—so much so, that far from serving Him out of obligation, they would still follow Him even if the whole world put down His name as evil. We don’t fear God because of any compulsion. Our faith is no shackle, our profession no slavery. We are not dragged to holiness or driven to duty. No, our devotion is pleasure, our hope is happiness, our duty delight. Delight and true religion are as related 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. And when we taste thy love, Our joys divinely grow, Unspeakable like those above, And heaven begins below. “Not with Our Mortal Eyes,” Isaac Watts (18th century) - C.H. Spurgeon Morning and Evening 

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord… . Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God. Genesis 6:8–9 No matter how ungodly the environment you may be in, God will always find you and walk with you. Noah lived in perhaps the most wicked age in history. No one worshiped God. All the people worshiped idols and pursued their own sinful pleasures. Noah's neighbors were evil; every person he associated with in the marketplace, or along the street, or in public gatherings, ridiculed the very thought of being faithful to God. Every temptation imaginable was abundantly available to Noah. How oppressive such an environment would have been to a righteous person! The people of Noah's day were so wicked that God planned the most complete and drastic act of judgment recorded in Scripture. Nevertheless, Noah was not lost to God in the crowd of sinners. God noticed every act of Noah's righteousness. Noah had chosen to live uprightly before God despite what everyone around him was doing, and God had observed him. There may have been times when Noah wondered if it mattered if he lived a righteous life, since no one else was. Yet he continued, and his persistence in righteousness saved his life and the lives of his family members. Are you constantly surrounded by evil? Do you struggle at times to live a righteous life when those you associate with each day have no concern for God? Find assurance in the life of Noah. God watches you, even as He observed Noah. God will seek you out of the crowd every time, and He wants to bless you and your family just as He blessed Noah. - Blackaby Experiencing God Day by Day 

Many may have seen the various bits of humor concerning where you emphasize a word or part of a word you change the meaning of the sentence. 

The title of today's is one that is read and is meant to be taken in more than one way. 

Delight in your Circumstances, emphasize the word Delight. 

Delight in your Circumstances, emphasize the word circumstances. 

Look at it from more than one direction.  

Then consider your life, the things you do. The things you need to do.  How you do it, why you do it.  Look at it from more than one perspective. 

Not everything is as it seems.  Oh we live in a world where both businesses and media try to convince you what to think, how to think and honestly, they don't want you thinking for yourself.  That's not how God works.  God tells us to set our minds on things above not on things down here. He tells us to pray...believing. To pray without ceasing. To think on that which the Spirit is doing in us and around us.  

To look at not only the fruit of others, but what fruit we bear as well. To set the bar at Holiness of God and no less. 

I have found, in my 50+ years on this Earth that my only truly happy times of delight were in doing something that God wanted done.  Regardless of the circumstances. 

It's rather discouraging when we look more at our failures in life than our success.  We take apart every failure to find out why, yet don't do that with our successes.  

As I mentioned the times when I KNEW that I was right where God wanted me, regardless of the circumstances, I had the most delight.  Circumstances can be rough but what God tells us to do must be our focus.  Noah KNEW that nobody but him, his wife, his son's and their wives would be saved in the Ark. Yet for the whole time, around a hundred years, he still preached for people to repent.  Why is that?  I have to believe it's because Noah believed in the Resurrection before it had a name. Those people wouldn't be joining him and his family now, but maybe would be with him in Paradise later.  Souls would be saved even though the physical body would not. 

Our circumstances don't define us. They try to. Oh how they try to. Look closely at the 4 Gospel accounts.  Look at the circumstances of the lives of the Disciples and Jesus. Jesus taught them to look beyond what their eyes see.  Today is no different than back then.  

Happiness and delight in Christ is in your heart and soul.  It's different from what the world wants you to believe.  It's in a place where only God sees by way of His Spirit.  Remember who weighs the thoughts and intentions of your life?  That well that springs up in the life of a believer that nobody can touch?

Delight in your Circumstances.  Find what it is God has for you to do and do it. You may not understand the bigger picture, it's ok.  God does.  That's what matters.  If Peter had fully known what he was about to do in denying Christ, you think he would have done it?  No, probably not.  But had he not gone through it, the blessed fruit of his restoration would not have happened so well to drive the ministry or the beginning of the Church. 

So delight in what God's given you to do. 

Consider that your not knowing isn't a punishment from God.  It's teaching a reliance on Christ and not yourselves. 

Delight in your Circumstances