GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 14 ~ ~ Revelation 5;8 ~ ~ God delights in the aroma of His own glory as He smells it in the prayers of His people.”

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

(referring to the verse above)

It is as though God has a favorite food. When we pray, he smells the aroma from the kitchen as you prepare his special dish. When God hungers for some special satisfaction, he seeks out a prayer to answer. Our prayer is the sweet aroma from the kitchen ascending up into the King’s chambers making him hungry for the meal.

But the actual enjoyment of the meal is his own glorious work in answering our prayer! The food of God is to answer our prayers.

The most wonderful thing about the Bible is that it reveals a God who satisfies his appetite for joy by answering prayers. He has no deficiency in himself that he needs to fill up, so he gets his satisfaction by magnifying the glory of his riches by filling up the deficiencies of people who pray.

This seems to be the point of Psalm 50:13-15:

“Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?” says the Lord. No. Therefore “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving….and call upon him in the day of trouble, and he will deliver you, and YOU SHALL GLORIFY HIM.”

The demonstration of the glory of God in answered prayer is God’s special feast. So if we want to feed him with the only kind of joy he is capable of, we hold up the empty cup of prayer and let him show the riches of his glory by filling it.

Thus the intensity of God’s delight in his glory is the measure of his pleasure in the prayers of his people.

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