Psalms 37:3-5 Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.
This is one of my favorite passages of scripture. What I’ve often noticed, however, is that we focus on receiving the desires of our heart. But if we look closely at this passage we have to realize that delighting ourselves in the Lord comes first, centering in Him, delighting in Him as the source and the fulfillment of our desires, and then, also, receiving from Him after your life is centered on Him.
Trust in the Lord…Delight in the Lord…Commit your way to the Lord…the center of the passage is Him.
Remember what Yeshua said, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, THEN all of these things shall be added unto you!”
The Lord is the source, the heart, and also ought to be the greatest object of our desire. There are lots of good things in this world but we have to be careful about what we want and why. When the Lord is our greatest, our first love, we are delighted in Him, every desire of our hearts will be perfectly fulfilled. That’s the promise of this wonderful word.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]We have seen that names have significant meanings, and as discussed earlier, Elimelech, whose name means “My God is King”, left Bethlehem with Naomi his wife and their two sons. The birth of these two boys must have brought joy and happiness, yet, having perished in Moab actually caused their very names to lose their original meanings.
As we commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, leaders from around the world gather to honor those who served and died to deliver Europe and the world from the Nazis during World War 2.
During the Biblical festival of Shavuot, the book of Ruth is read. It’s a powerful story of faith, restoration and redemption. The book opens with a famine in all the land surrounding Bethlehem, forcing a difficult decision upon Naomi’s husband, Elimelech. Now, Bethlehem (beth: “house”, lechem: “bread”) literally means “house of bread”, so the irony of Elimelech’s departure from his home, “house of bread”, during a famine, is lost on English speaking readers, but reveals that every detail in the word of God can be meaningful, especially the meanings of names.
One of my favorite ministers of the Gospel is D.L. Moody. He tells a story about having heard Pastor Henry Varley once say that, “The world has yet to see what God will do with and for and through the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.”
The Lord is quoted in this scripture in Matthew and it contains an important principle which I think we sometimes tend to overlook. Many believe and even teach that if someone acquires much material prosperity, then God has surely given them favor, and that if someone is undergoing extreme trial, it must be because they have sinned or that they lack faith. But the Lord says that the sun rises and the rain falls on both the righteous and the unrighteous alike. A life of good circumstances does not necessarily mean that God is with us. And likewise, a life of trial and suffering does not mean that God is not with us!
The African Impala (an African antelope) are amazing creatures that can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance greater than 30 feet. Yet Impalas can be kept in a zoo inside an enclosure with a simple 3 foot wall. Why? Impalas will not jump if they can’t see where their feet will land. Do we have something in common with these antelopes? Able to take great leaps of faith, but refusing to do it unless we can see where we’ll land?
An aging king woke up one day to the realization that should he drop dead, there would be no male in the royal family to take his place. He was the last male in the royal family in a culture where only a male could succeed to the throne – and he was aging. He decided that if he could not give birth to a male, he would adopt a son who then could take his place but he insisted that such an adopted son must be extraordinary in every sense of the word. So he launched a competition in his kingdom, open to all boys, no matter what their background. Ten boys made it to the very top.