Delight (19)
51K
If you set your love on worldly things, they will not satisfy. You may as well satisfy your body with air, as your soul with earth. "In the fullness of his sufficiency, he shall be in straits" (Job xx. 22). Plenty has its penury. If the globe of the world were yours, it would not fill your soul. And will you set your love on that which will never give you contentment? Is it not better to love God? He will give you that which shall satisfy.https://www.ccel.org/ccel/watson/cordial.ix.html
To own and stand up for a hated and despised truth will bring more comfort to our souls than all the pleasure the wicked have in their sensual delights.
Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
Delight in God's service makes us resemble the angels in heaven. They serve God with cheerfulness; as soon as God speaks the word, they are ambitious to obey. How are they ravished with delight while they are praising God! In heaven we shall be as the angels; spiritual delight would make us like them here. To serve God by constraint is to be like the devil. All the devils in hell obey God, but it is against their will; they yield a passive obedience. But service which comes off with delight is angelical. This is that we pray for, that "God's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven." Is it not done with delight there?
Delight in religion crowns all our services. Therefore, David counsels his son Solomon not only to serve God but to serve Him "with a willing mind" (1 Chron. 28:9). Delight in duty is better than duty itself, as it is worse for a man to delight in sin than to commit it because there is more of the will in sin. So delight in duty is to be preferred before duty: "O how love I thy law" (Ps. 119:97)! It is not how much we do, but how much we love. Hypocrites may obey God's law, but the saints love His law; this carries away the garland.
That, therefore, which we are to understand ourselves called to, under the name of delighting in God, is the keeping of our souls open to divine influences and communications—thirsing after them, praying and waiting for them, endeavoring to improve them and cooperate with them, and to stir up ourselves to such exercises of religion as are most suitable to our present state, together with an allowing and applying ourselves to stay and taste, in our progress and course, the sweetness and delightfulness of those communications and operations whereof we have any present experience.
Cheerfulness is like music to the soul. It excites to duty. It oils the wheels of the affections. Cheerfulness makes service come off with delight, and we are never carried so swift in religion as upon the wings of delight. Melancholy takes off our chariot wheels, and then we drive on heavily. Discourses 1:377
The heart must be kept courageous and strong and lively, like an instrument which is tuned to tune all the rest, or else every grief will make thee impatient. In Deuteronomy 30:9 it is said that God rejoices to do us good, and therefore in Deuteronomy 28 the Jews are reproved because they rejoiced not in the service of God. As He loveth a cheerful giver, so He loveth a cheerful server and a cheerful preacher and a cheerful hearer and a cheerful worshiper; and therefore David saith, "Let us sing unto the LORD" (Ps. 95:1), showing, as it were, the tune which delights God's ears. Sermons, 115
A smooth, if a false way should not delight us; nor should a rugged, if a right way, dishearten us.
New Quotes
Behold Him in the infinite perfections of His being: His omnipotence, omniscience, and His goodness; His holiness, eternity, immutability, etc. And as your eye delights in an excellent picture or comely buildings or fields or gardens not because they are yours, but because they are a delectable object to the eye, so let your minds delight themselves in God considered in Himself, as the only object of highest delight.
Diligently labor, that God and holiness may be thy chief delight. And this holy delight may be the ordinary temperament of thy religion.
Rightly understand what delight in God it is that you must seek and exercise. It is not a mere sensitive delight, which is exercised about the objects of sense or fancy and is common to beasts with men; nor is it the delights of immediate intuition of God, such as the blessed have in heaven; nor is it an enthusiastic delight, consisting in irrational raptures and joys, of which we can give no account of the reason. Nor is it a delight inconsistent with sorrow and fear, when they are duties; but it is the solid, rational complacency of the soul in God and holiness, arising from the apprehensions of that in Him, which is justly delectable to us. And it is such as, in estimation of its object and inward complacency and gladness though not in passionate joy or mirth, must excel our delight in temporal pleasure and must be the end of all our humiliations and other inferior duties.
To rejoice is not only a delight that God wants us to enjoy, but it is also an example to others.
The dominion that sin has over us is according to the delight we have in it.
The more a man delighteth in God, and in the ways of God, the more he cleaveth to Him, and resolveth to go on in this course, and temptations to sensual delights do less prevail.
Take delight in the word of God. 'How sweet are they words unto my taste.' Psa cxix 103. Chrysostom compares God's word to a garden. If we walk in this garden, and such sweetness from the flowers of the promises, we shall never care to pluck the 'forbidden fruit.' Ten Commandments, 161
There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
Do you feel loved by God because you believe he makes much of you, or because you believe he frees you and empowers you to enjoy making much of him?
Get notified when new 'Delight' quotes come out?
Special OfferTop Authors
1. Thomas Watson (167)
2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
3. J.C. Ryle (117)
4. John Calvin (107)
5. J.I. Packer (93)
6. John Piper (87)
7. Thomas Brooks (84)
8. George Swinnock (82)
9. John Flavel (77)
10. John Owen (69)
11. A.W. Pink (68)
12. Louis Berkhof (63)
13. Thomas Manton (60)
14. C.S. Lewis (59)
15. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (58)
16. B.B. Warfield (58)
17. William Gurnall (56)
18. R.C. Sproul (55)
19. Heinrich Bullinger (53)
20. Matthew Henry (51)
2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
3. J.C. Ryle (117)
4. John Calvin (107)
5. J.I. Packer (93)
6. John Piper (87)
7. Thomas Brooks (84)
8. George Swinnock (82)
9. John Flavel (77)
10. John Owen (69)
11. A.W. Pink (68)
12. Louis Berkhof (63)
13. Thomas Manton (60)
14. C.S. Lewis (59)
15. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (58)
16. B.B. Warfield (58)
17. William Gurnall (56)
18. R.C. Sproul (55)
19. Heinrich Bullinger (53)
20. Matthew Henry (51)
Top Topics
1. Sin (216)2. Scripture (152)
3. Prayer (143)
4. Faith (134)
5. Preaching (119)
6. Gospel (111)
7. The Law (108)
8. Suffering (99)
9. Salvation (91)
10. Sabbath (88)
11. Church (85)
12. Christ (82)
13. Grace (73)
14. Law (61)
15. Justification (55)
16. Truth (53)
17. Death (51)
18. Holiness (47)
19. Love (46)
20. Heaven (45)
21. Children (44)
22. Creation (43)
23. Theology (43)
24. Ten Commandments (42)
25. Holy Spirit (41)
26. Obedience (40)