Recently, I have been pondering over “Enjoying God and Living for His Purpose” – you know, we need to see the connection between enjoyment of God and purpose of God! First of all – Our God is a God of purpose! The universe was created for God’s will, which is His purpose (Rev 4:11). We may feel that our personal life, our personal universe, exhibits more chaos than “God’s purpose” but the fact is that our God has an eternal purpose. And He has put a longing for this purpose in the human heart (Eccl 3:11).
Also, our God is a God of Joy. What comes to your mind when you hear the word “GOD”? It may be that you think: almighty, powerful, judge, holy, sovereign, all-knowing, Love (if you are a soft person). But God is joy, enjoyable, pleasant, delightful – God equals Joy!
Many of us are afraid of God. We never open ourselves to Him, thinking He is out there to get us, to deal with us. But in the first reference to God’s relationship with man, God presents Himself to man as food. God wants man to enjoy Him. We can see this in Psalms 16:11 “Your presence is fullness of joy”. Not just having a good time in His presence, but there is fullness of joy! Also, Psalms 36:8 says “And You will cause them to drink of the river of Your pleasures.” When the Lord flows in you and you drink of the Spirit, you drink paradise water.
Jer 15:16 “Your words were found and I ate them, And Your word became to me The gladness and joy of my heart, …” Of all the words that I found this week (in the newspapers, on the TV, from different writers and theologians, etc) they never make me happy. But there is a certain person’s word (God’s word) when I eat them – I have a happy heart! When we enjoy God – by being in His presence of the beloved Son, by drinking of the river of His pleasures, by taking in His WORD which becomes joy in us – we are spontaneously ONE with Him, effortlessly.
Don’t try to work out God’s purpose. Don’t try to pray as a WORK. Don’t try to study the truth as a TASK. Don’t try to have “morning revival” as a ROUTINE. Just Enjoy the Lord. I am not saying here “Thou shalt enjoy the Lord” as yet another commandment. This is not a demand – now we need to work at enjoying the Lord(it seems like this is a contradiction). We need to discover or rediscover, how enjoyable God is in Himself. We need to discover how our God – being motivated by sheer love for us – came in the Son as the Savior to recover us out of everything and anything that is a barrier between us and the God of Joy.
Then – when we enjoy Him we are energized, vitalized. Have you ever been energized without being joyful? It is always related to your joyful contact with Him. Spontaneously we open to Him, we consecrate to Him, are one with Him, and then we live for Him effortlessly. If we earnestly give ourselves to this noble work – to carry out God’s economy, to fight the ultimate battle to bring in the kingdom, and we forget the basic need to enjoy the Lord, for our heart to be happy in the Lord, to drink of the river of its pleasures, to have fullness of joy in His presence, to eat the Word until it becomes fullness of joy in our heart – IT WON’T WORK!!!
In Conclusion: The God of purpose is the God of Joy who created us and redeemed us for His purpose and He knows that in order to live for His purpose, day by day in our actual situation, we need to enjoy Him. This is the sequence. Enjoying God & living for His purpose. [guest post: bro. Samuel]
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