Dear Ones:
If we are like sheep, the sheep of His pasture, how much do we really grasp of Who the Shepherd truly is? Every fresh and new glimpse of Christ, should bring us into a deeper, more thankful, and delightful response to His gracious appeals. Let’s look briefly at Psalmist’s and Paul’s knowledge of the Shepherd, the King, then seek to grasp something of what this means, and what our experience should be as we come to increasingly SEE and KNOW Him..
First, in Psalm 100, we find that we are to come “unto the Lord,” making a JOYFUL noise. What kind of King would delight that we should come in this manner? Only one who is absolutely good, merciful, and desiring the highest blessing of those coming. This “Lord,” though He possess all power and authority, has paid the ultimate price, that we should respond to His overtures to come into His presence, with free hearts, hearts that are full of His joy, praise, thanksgiving, and blessing. We then go on to serving Him…”serve the Lord with gladness.” (v.2) What a testimony to Him desiring our highest good in coming, as it is a fact that “the joy of the Lord is our strength.” But behind the coming into His presence, and the serving Him with gladness, is the greatest reality, that He is altogether perfect, beautiful in His holiness, wonderful. There is no fault, flaw, or failure in Him. He is altogether lovely, One who is the wonderful object of all delight. There is no higher blessing than to gaze upon Him and in gazing, to be changed.
We get to the New Testament, and we see Paul writing to the Philippians and the Colossians the same message, “Rejoice in the Lord, ALWAYS.” Our great calling is to delight in God, in Christ, find our joy and satisfaction in Him. He is constantly the object and essence of all of our joy, peace, love, and a thousand things more. Nothing on this earth compares with Him, and the consequent delight that we are to have in Him. Paul then goes on to call us to constant prayer, that walking with God, by the Spirit, giving Him access to all things, having cast every burden upon Him, to be free to run the race, looking unto Him. Or as some translations put it, “…Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of Faith.” (Heb. 12:2) The great issues of life, the great possibilities of a life pleasing to God, resides in our vision of Christ, our delighting ourselves in Him, the source of our rejoicing.
If we would know “the peace of God,” of which Paul writes, and the joy of Christ….if we would know the love of God, then our delight must be in Him. If we would know the reality of not being anxious for anything, but living in an attitude of submission and faith, through all of the circumstances of life, then we must rejoice in Him. Those who want to truly KNOW and EXPERIENCE God will need to meditate upon these words, and obey them:
“Delight thyself in the Lord, and He will give thee the desires of thy heart.” (Ps. 37:4) Oh to have the desires of His heart, realized and expressed in our own. This is where heaven and earth meet, in the heart that delights itself in Christ. That is a place where the peace of God is truly known.
Love, Dad