GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 6~ ~ Psalm 37:4~ ~ “Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

John Piper’s book, “The Pleasures of God”

From the beginning of this book, our question still remains: What is the measure of God’s worth and excellency? He is our main focus, not ourselves. Nonetheless, the worth of a soul’s beauty is measured by the object of its love. Therefore we must focus on what it is that God loves in us. Even if we concentrate of what God requires of us, the reason is always the deeper question: Why does he? Or what does this requirement reveal about God’s own worth and excellency?

The focus corresponds to a tremendously important practical question we should have, namely, how we, as sinners, can PLEASE a holy God. What can we feel, think or do that would bring him pleasure? We know that this is a legitimate biblical question because Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:9 that whether he was in heaven or on earth he would make it his aim to PLEASE THE LORD.”

This is a crucial question because even if God would allow us into heaven as persons displeasing to him, heaven would not be heaven. It would be a miserable thing if there were nothing we could do that delighted the heart of God. A joyful personal relationship with God in heaven is inconceivable if there is no way for us to please him.

How we view God will determine our idea of how we can please God. How a person decides to try to please God is the most fateful decision a person can ever make.

What if you discovered (like the Pharisees did) that you had devoted your whole life to trying to please God, but all the while had been doing things that in God’s sight were abominations (Luke 16:14-15)? someone may say, “I don’t think that’s possible; God wouldn’t reject a person who has been trying to please him.” But do you see what this questioner has done? He has based his conviction about what would please God on his idea of what God is like. That is precisely why we had to begin with the character of God. That is why we had to begin this book by learning about the pleasures of God in himself.

What we saw in those early chapters was that God has no needs that I could ever be required to satisfy. God has no deficiencies that I might be required to supply. He is complete in himself. He is overflowing with happiness in the fellowship of the Trinity.

The upshot of this is that God is a mountain spring, not a watering trough. A mountain spring is self-replenishing, it constantly overflows and supplies others. But a watering trough needs to be filled with a pump or bucket brigade. So if you want to glorify the worth of a watering trough you work hard to keep it full and useful. But if you want to glorify the worth of a spring you do it by getting down on your hands and knees and drinking to your heart’s satisfaction, until you have the refreshment and strength to go back down in the valley and tell people what you’ve found. You do not glorify a mountain spring by dutifully hauling water up the path from the river below and dumping it in the spring.

What we have seen is that God is like a mountain spring, not a watering trough. Since that is the way God is, we are not surprised to learn from Scripture—and our faith is strengthened to hold fast—that the way to PLEASE God is to come to him to get and not to give, to drink and not to water. He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

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