The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe
"More Pleasure"
Part 1 - "His Delight"
Of all the mysteries that presently astound us regarding God's desire for our fellowship, and all that doubtless await us in eternity, none more challenge our understanding than a truth that seems most unlikely. Namely, both now and forevermore, our Heavenly Father will find more pleasure in our relating to Him than we find in His relating to us.
"The Lord taketh pleasure in His people" (Psalm 149:4).
I hope you reacted in reading the proposal with as much pause as I did in writing it. How can such a thing be true? How can creatures such as ourselves bring "more pleasure" to our glorious Creator than He brings to us? Scripture answers the question in a number of ways we will consider over the next few days.
-1-
"Infinite"
First, God's thoughts, emotions, and sensibilities are of infinite measure and degree, transcending our own in ways we cannot fathom. The simplest divine thought. The seemingly least intense emotion. The slightest sense. All span so far beyond our capacities that we would be hopelessly overwhelmed by a mere moment of experiencing their vastness. Thus, when we attempt to comprehend the measure and degree of God's thoughts, emotions, and senses toward us, we fall to our faces in realization that we will never begin to find pleasure in Him as He finds in us. "The love of Christ… passeth knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19).
Consider the simplest prayer, perhaps, a sincere "Thank You" expressed in the moment. We may or may not feel emotion in our offering. We can be sure, however, our Heavenly Father does in the receiving. "The prayer of the upright is His delight" (Proverbs 15:8). "Delight?" An infinite God, perfectly and completely fulfilled in Himself, nevertheless delights in the utterance of imperfect and needy creatures such as ourselves? The realization, believed and embraced, will change our understanding of prayer, and even more, our walk with God in personal fellowship. By human comprehension, we should seemingly not matter to Him at all. In divine thought, emotion, and sensibility, however, we matter to Him so infinitely much that He purposed the cross of Calvary to make possible the hearing of words we express to Him: "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus" (Hebrews 10:19).
It is easy to unintentionally view prayer more in regard to our experience than that of God. Certainly, fellowship with Him does much and far more for us than we will ever know. As creatures, however, we bear limited capacity to respond, especially in comparison to our Father's full attention, devotion, and response when we turn to Him. Prayer is about us in 1% of its meaning, significance, and importance (a vast and vital 1%). Prayer is far more about God in 99% of its glorious reality of fellowship between the Creator and the creatures that mean so much to Him. It matters much what we experience in the communion of Heart to heart. It matters far more what our Lord experiences of "delight" in our prayers.
As suggested, we may initially be taken aback by such a proposal. But then we open our Bibles and find how true it is that God takes pleasure in His people. Or rather, an infinite, eternal God immeasurably rejoices when we turn our hearts toward Him through the grace of the Lord Jesus. This moment offers the opportunity to please the Heart so worthy of any pleasure we can offer…
"Open to me the gates of righteousness, I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord."
(Psalm 118:19)
"Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more."
(I Thessalonians 4:1)
Weekly Memory Verse
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
(I Peter 5:8)
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