Morning, June 14

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"Delight thyself also in the Lord."

  Psalm 37:4

   The teaching of these words must seem very surprising to those who are
   strangers to vital godliness, but to the sincere believer it is only
   the inculcation of a recognized truth. The life of the believer is here
   described as a delight in God, and we are thus certified of the great
   fact that true religion overflows with happiness and joy. Ungodly
   persons and mere professors never look upon religion as a joyful thing;
   to them it is service, duty, or necessity, but never pleasure or
   delight. If they attend to religion at all, it is either that they may
   gain thereby, or else because they dare not do otherwise. The thought
   of delight in religion is so strange to most men, that no two words in
   their language stand further apart than "holiness" and "delight." But
   believers who know Christ, understand that delight and faith are so
   blessedly united, that the gates of hell cannot prevail to separate
   them. They who love God with all their hearts, find that his ways are
   ways of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace. Such joys, such
   brimful delights, such overflowing blessednesses, do the saints
   discover in their Lord, that so far from serving him from custom, they
   would follow him though all the world cast out his name as evil. We
   fear not God because of any compulsion; our faith is no fetter, our
   profession is no bondage, we are not dragged to holiness, nor driven to
   duty. No, our piety is our pleasure, our hope is our happiness, our
   duty is our delight.

   Delight and true religion are as allied as root and flower; as
   indivisible as truth and certainty; they are, in fact, two precious
   jewels glittering side by side in a setting of gold.


   "'Tis when we taste thy love,

   Our joys divinely grow,

   Unspeakable like those above,

   And heaven begins below."