Delighting the Lord
Delighting the Lord
7/13 Reading Portions: Joshua 18-19; Psalms 149-150; Jeremiah 9; Matthew 23
“…but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” Jeremiah 9:24
The greatest boast our souls may offer upon earth is boasting in knowing God, and that by His grace, He sanctifies us to behave as holy as redeemed sinners are able. Our boasting cannot be arrogant. How can it possibly be? How could we understand God or know anything of God except He has first revealed Himself to us? We could not. How could we extend mercy (steadfast love), justice, or righteousness except God has equipped us and empowered us first? There’s no way. It’s all by God’s grace.
Moreover, we cannot even begin to understand God or have any kind of relationship with Him apart from the cross of Jesus Christ. It is through the cross of Christ wherein we have access to God. It is in the cross of Christ whereby we see the steadfast love, justice, and righteousness of our holy God. YHVH God says,
“Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches.” Jeremiah 9:23
All man’s wisdom, all man’s strength, and all man’s wealth cannot reveal the truth of Christ’s cross to the soul. It must come by grace through faith. Not many of us who have been called of God were wise by the world’s standards, mighty, or of noble birth (1 Cor 1:26), because these things distract a man from seeing the cross with spiritual eyes and receiving the salvation of Christ’s cross through faith.
God’s greatest delight is when our delight and boast is in the cross of Jesus Christ. For it is written,
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Galatians 6:14
The cross of Christ is our great boast,
In it does God delight;
For by God’s grace He draws us close
To know Him by faith’s sight.
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