Why Enjoying God is So Important & How to Do It

The brilliant American thinker, Jonathan Edwards, pointed out that every decision you make is determined by the strongest desire reigning in your heart at the time of the decision. In other words, your heart shapes every decision, which means we better keep our hearts properly aligned or they will lead us to make a lot of bad decisions! This episode examines key biblical principles for keeping our hearts aligned the way God designed them to be.

When RC Sproul first taught me Edward’s observation that we always choose what we most WANT at any point of time, I balked, because, I thought, “Sometimes I do what I don’t want to do—exercising, eating vegetables, catching up on paperwork.” But Sproul went on to say, “Suppose a robber puts a gun to your head and says, ‘Your money or your life.’ I thought, “Yeah that’s a great example of having to do what you don’t want to do.” But Sproul pointed out that in that situation you will still do what you most want to do. The robber has just limited your choices: either give him your money or have your brains on the sidewalk. Given those two options, you WANT to give the thief your money more than you WANT your brains on the sidewalk. So, you do what you most WANT to do at that moment—give him the money and stay alive. I labor Edward’s point to emphasize that your heart, i.e. your desires, your wants, steer your entire life. God reveals this truth in Proverbs 4:23, Above all else, guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life.

For this reason, our mission, as Christ-followers, always begins with keeping our hearts properly aligned. We state it this way: We are Called TO Christ, to enjoy a love relationship with him. We were designed for a love relationship with God, which is why Jesus taught that the greatest of all commandments is ‘You shall love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The significance of what our highest affections are set upon is also the reason the first two of the ten commandments require that our highest allegiance be to God, worshipping him alone and resisting any earthly rival that might steal away the first love of our hearts. Furthermore, becoming more Christ-like happens more through heart transformation than behavior modification. As Bryan Chapell, says, Spiritual change is more a consequence of what our hearts love than of what our hands do (Holiness by Grace).

Paul wants the Philippian Christians to keep their hearts aligned, when he commands, Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice (4:4). This is the command to deliberately, intentionally, choose to enjoy God. We often connect rejoicing to our circumstances, rejoicing at a wedding, or after a hard-fought win. But this cannot be Paul’s meaning, because he adds the little word, always. Our rejoicing is not in our circumstances but in a person—in the Lord. “Take pleasure in, satisfy your heart in, take delight in—ENJOY—the Lord, commands Paul. Here are some reasons why the discipline of giving yourself joy through your relationship with the Lord is so important:

• We are made for God and he is the answer to our deepest longings. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night (Ps 63:5-6).
• If we have little taste for Jesus, competing pleasures triumph. Jesus tolerates no rivals. He claims the position of being our first love. Giving him less is spiritual adultery. You adulterous people, writes James, Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (4:4).
• Dwelling in God’s presence is designed by him to be a profound source of joy for us. In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore (Ps 16:11). Could you use a little more joy in your life?
• Because joyful Christians show the work of the Spirit in them and draw others to Christ. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy….(Gal 5:22).
• Enjoyment fills our empty emotional tanks. Enjoying my love relationship with God replenishes my soul filling me up so I can give love to others. We love, because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).

Four Hindrances To Enjoying God

A.  Looking for ultimate heart satisfaction other places. Please realize that the fall of Adam’s race has profoundly corrupted our hearts causing us to seek heart satisfaction in any place but God himself. Whatever we look to for soul satisfaction can easily become idols. The heart, which was created to worship and be primarily satisfied through a love relationship with God, becomes an idol factory, fashioning counterfeit gods who promise to satisfy our heart’s desires. Our sinful nature blinds us, making us momentarily believe we need the satisfaction of the desires that these idols promise to fulfill. C.S. Lewis, commenting on the desires that rule the human heart, challenges us:

If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the gospels, it would seem that our lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased. (“The Weight of Glory”).

As we practice delighting ourselves in the Lord, we experience the joy of “a holiday at the sea,” which is so much more satisfying than making mud pies in the slums. But we must resist the pull of other desires that are often good in themselves. The problem is that we over-desire what these false gods promise and let these idols crowd out the enjoyment of feasting our hearts on God and his love for us. Consider three examples of modern day idols:

1. Work provides us with a treasure chest of intoxicating rewards:

• Recognition from coworkers
• Positions and titles that build our self-esteem
• Authority over others that makes us feel significant
• Financial rewards that let us wear things, travel places, and buy things that make us feel good.

These treasures satisfy so many desires of our hearts that success at work can assume too high a priority.

2. The explosion of sexual pleasure that accompanies love-making in marriage is a powerful, intoxicating pleasure. It is intended to be! Prov 5 says to husbands, Rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love (vs 18:b-19). But the intoxicating, soul-rocking pleasure of sexual release outside of marriage can become an idol that stalks us, waiting for the opportune moment to make its appeal, Want to stop feeling bad and feel really intense pleasure?

3. Other’s acceptance. Our craving for acceptance causes us to give enormous power to the people around us: Scotty Smith observes the power of peer pressure, amplified by the social media. People’s acceptance, he points out:

• Can become the oxygen that we need to live
• Can become the electricity to power our circuits
• Can become the cocaine that medicates our pain
• Can become the prophet whose every word is truth
• Can become the priest who has the power to make us feel acceptable
• Can become the king who control us at will

So, the first big obstacle to finding joy in our walk with God is that default to chasing pleasures that will never satisfy our hearts the way enjoying god does. Tim Keller writes, Idols ultimately are cruel to the heart of the one who offers us so much, and at such infinite cost. Realize that when you pine after idols… you are saying, “Lord, you are not enough. This is more beautiful, fulfilling, and sweet to my taste than you (Preaching the Gospel).

B. The second obstacle to finding joy in our walk with God can be that the gospel of grace has not fully penetrated our hearts. This can happen in two ways: 1) We don’t let the gospel reach far enough down into our soul to bring about complete repentance. When I fully turn towards Christ repenting of my sin and fully gaze upon the glory of Christ my Redeemer, I am transformed into Christ’s image from one degree of glory to another. (2 Cor 3:18). But if there is part of my life that I refuse to surrender to his Lordship, I have only turned towards him partially and not fully. So, my joy in him will be incomplete. Being all-in, i.e. having an undivided heart is fundamental to our joy. 2) However, many men who are fully repentant also don’t enjoy God, because grace hasn’t fully penetrated their hearts, either. They know they are forgiven because they trust Christ as the atoning sacrifice for their sins. But their continuing sin convinces them that even though God loves them, he doesn’t like them very much. They are very aware of the repulsiveness of their sins to a holy God, especially their sexual ones. They believe that when they die, they will go into God’s holy presence because they are cleansed from their sin by Jesus’ blood. But until then, they feel like they have to live in God’s heavenly dog house, because they keep on sinning and failing God.

Let’s think about this concept of God sending me to the dog house because, despite loving me and forgiving me, he doesn’t like me. Do you want to hang out with people who don’t like you? Is that the group that you choose to be your friends? Of course not. To the contrary, your friends are those who DO LIKE you. In fact, as I look at my closest friendships, there is almost a direct relationship between THOSE WHO LIKE ME MOST and those I WANT to be close to!  If I let Satan, the Accuser of the Brothers, poison my relationship with God by convincing me God’s current attitude towards me is that I belong out of his sight in the spiritual doghouse because I can’t get “righteousness” right, I will never achieve the most foundational part of my mission—enjoying a love relationship with Christ. Because our guilt and sin are real, we will never be able to fully ENJOY our relationship with our Lord until we know in our hearts that the death of Jesus for our sin enables us right now to look into our Judge’s face and see our Bridegroom. So, the second hindrance is the failure to fully understand grace. The third is closely related to the second:

C. Failure to realize how much God delights in me. Scotty Smith writes,

As image bearers of God, the deepest thirst and most acute hunger of our souls is to be delighted in by God. The seventeenth-century Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Author and pastor John Piper has appropriately restated this old confession this way: “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever,” and “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” We enjoy God to the degree that we know his delight (Objects of His Affection).

Scripture goes to great length to convince us that we are God’s delight:

• We are the delight of God, our creator. Psalm 149 says, Let Israel be glad in his Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King! Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre! FOR the Lord takes pleasure in his people. (vs 2-4a). When God looks upon you and me, he experiences pleasure. Think of that.
• We are the delight of God, our redeemer king. The prophet, Zephaniah, foresaw the day when King Jesus would redeem his people from their sin. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing (3:14-17). These words describe Jesus; feelings about us. Scotty Smith writes: Astonishing isn’t it? Zephaniah states that God is not only with us through his mighty salvation, but that he, quintessentially, is the Great Delighter, and his delight is in us (Ibid).
• We are the delight of God, our lover. Isaiah foresaw the day that God, himself would come in the flesh, over throw sin and become our bridegroom. As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you (62:5). Our God delights in us enabling so hearts can say with confidence, I am my beloved’s and he is mine (Song of Songs 7:10).
• We are the delight of God, our Heavenly Father. The God who said to his Son, This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased (Matt 3:17) has adopted us into the his family. The same love, delight, and pleasure that God, the Father has for God, the Son, he has for all those who are “in Christ.” There are No EXCEPTIONS.

D. The 4th reason we fail to enjoy God is because we don’t implement a strategy to actually obey this command, Delight yourself in the Lord. Here are four reasons I believe we fail to obey this command:

• In a culture dominated by secularism, our focus is constantly riveted to the outer, physical world, not the inner, spiritual, world
• We have not grasped the significance of managing our heart. It is the bridge of our ship, the nerve center of our lives, the wellspring of our life.
• We don’t realize that in this command, God is saying, “I don’t want you being so busy serving me that you don’t ENJOY me.” His desire for us to enjoy him matters!
• We don’t realize how easy it is to implement such a plan. Delighting in the Lord simply means 1) looking at him closely (through OT texts that praise his perfections and gazing upon Jesus, the visible image of the invisible God, in the gospels), and celebrating who he is, 2) verbalizing praise to him for what you see, 3) discovering more and more of who he is, 4) expressing gratefulness to him for his many blessings in your life, 5) abiding (i.e. basking) in Jesus’ love for you as he commanded.

Scotty Smith whose writings taught me had some words that I think especially relate to men's responsibilities,

As we rest in the love of Jesus, we are freed to love others as he loves us—including our spouses, children, friends, and strangers—and hyes, even our enemies. To be delighted in by God enables us to greatly delight in him. We delight in him because he first delighted in us. And as the objects of God’s great delight, we are freed to need people less but empowered to love them more. We are conduits…vessels of mercy and grace poured out for others (Objects of His Affection pa 80).

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. Why should Christians watch over their heart with all diligence?

2.  If you were explaining to a young believer how we need to go about delighting ourselves in the Lord and why, what would you say?