DELIGHT in the Lord!

As I said I have been attending the Annual Conference of the AFLC, in Sioux Falls, SD.  It has been a marvelous week of inspiration, worship, encouragement, seeing old friends and making new!

Tuesday was the WMF day…Women’s Missionary Federation…where the women of the AFLC gather each year.  The theme for the day came from Psalm 37:3-6, Trust, Delight, Commit!

“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.”

Did you catch all those verbs (text in orange)?  That means these are active commands…we have something that we must do in order to receive the promises that go along with them (the text in red).

My fav speaker that day was Amy Skogerboe who spoke on how we can delight in the Lord. She did an extensive study on the word delight (sounds like my kinda girl when it comes to Bible study)  Here is a summary of 3 things she found out and shared with us:

•  Delighting in the Lord is WISE…God knows it is for His great glory and my great good.  It is balm for my soul.  I only have to look at Psalm 139 to know how wonderfully He made me and how much He loves me and desires a relationship with me.  Jeremiah 29:11 tells me:  “'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.  'Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  'You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.’”  We were designed to delight in Him!
• Delighting in the Lord is WORSHIP…He is all He says He is and our delight in Him turns to praise/adoration/worship where we are celebrating the creator/potter/artist/vine!!  We need to REVEL in His attributes.  What better way to do this then to read the Psalms, which tell us who God is, and praise Him right then out loud and/or in song.  Do you realize how many songs come from the Psalms?
• Delighting in the Lord is WARFARE…Satan is afraid of our delight!  When we taste and see that the Lord is good, the world just doesn’t stack up and Satan is thwarted!!  Amy said that the problem with the church today is that we practice “disinterested reverence”.  Oh, how we need to come to worship today prepared and excited to worship and delight in the Lord, causing Satan to turn tail and run, and then go out into the world continuing to delight in Him every day, not just on Sundays!

Tomorrow is Sunday and I am praying God will give me an expectant heart, a heart ready to delight in Him in church and all day long (even if I will be in a car most of the day)!  Praise be to God!!