Delight in God (Psalm 37:4)
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
– Psalm 37:4
That is a verse worth memorizing if you’ve not memorized it. Maybe even right now, just kind of say it with me. “Delight yourself in the Lord”. Let’s just say it a couple of times. “Delight yourself in the Lord, delight yourself in the Lord”. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you, and he will give you, he will give you the desires of your heart, the desires of your heart, the desires of your heart”. See if you can say it all at once. “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart”. And then just soak in what this means.
Psalm 37:4 teaches the secret to answered prayer through delight in God.
I’ve mentioned it at different points, but the twofold secret to prayer, to getting all that you ask for in prayer. Here’s the twofold secret.
Secret one. Make your wants, God’s wants. Then two, pray for whatever you want. That’s the secret. Make your wants, God’s wants. Delight yourself in the Lord. Ask him to transform the desires of your heart. Make your wants God’s wants, your desires, God’s desires. Then ask for whatever you desire because you know you’re asking for what God desires. This is his design for us in prayer, that our hearts would be so aligned with his, our desires aligned with his, that what we’re asking for is what he desires.
And this is the whole premise of this podcast: that when his Words are abiding in us, his desires are transforming us.Then we ask whatever we desire according to his Word, and it will be given to us. And so we pray, oh God, Psalm 37:4, over each of our lives, we pray that our deepest delight would be in you alone.
You above all, you above, over all the best things this world has to offer us. Over and above the people we love the most, the things we enjoy the most. May our delight in you far surpass all of those things put together.
Psalm 37:4 pictures the beauty of a heart transformed by worship.
Help us, oh God, to delight in you over and above all, in such a way that your desires transform our desires. God, please align our desires with yours and then teach us to pray for all that we desire.
Oh God, transform our desires to align with yours. Then grant us everything we ask for and desire, we pray. And God, so many things start coming to our minds that we desire in our lives, that we desire for others’ lives. God, we know you desire all the nations to worship you, all the nations to know your grace and your mercy and your love in Jesus. And so we ask for that. We ask for all the nations to know and enjoy you.
Prayer for the Gayo People
God, we pray specifically for the Gayo people of Indonesia for 348,000 Muslim men, women, and children. We know your desire is to bring salvation to them, so we ask for it. God bless all those who are working for the spread of the gospel to the Gayo people, cause your Church in Indonesia, from other places outside of Indonesia, to work with success for the spread of your grace and your glory among the Gayo people of Indonesia. Yes, God, may it be so.
We pray that you would all day long transform our desires to be like yours, to be one with yours, and then teach us to pray nonstop for all we desire. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
