Spurgeon: June AM
* 06/14/AM
"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."