But the prayer of the upright is His delight.
~Proverbs 15:8a(NKJV)
Are you delighting the Lord as you should be, as His child? The prayer of you, His upright servant, is His delight. Are you praying to your Father as often as you should be? I'm preaching to myself every bit as much as I am to you. I'm ashamed to say that I often find myself rushing here and there through the course of each very busy day, not even taking the time to enjoy a deep and intimate conversation with my Savior, the lover of my soul. How sinful and shameful that is! I should desire to speak with Him above anyone else! He's the One who I'd been consistantly sinning against. He's the One I had been the rebellious enemy of-the One whose soul I was grieving because of my unrighteousness. Yet He came down, out of immense love for me that I can't begin to comprehend, to willingly endure the most agonizing, traumatizing, excrutiating death that anyone could possibly go through. Yet He spoke not a word of anger or malice through the whole ordeal. And here I am, not even taking the time to speak with Him?! How that must grieve Him! How that must sadden Him to know that His daughter, who He died for so that He might save and spend eternity with her, isn't even speaking to Him everyday all day as she should be!
Are you guilty of this sin as well? There is hope, dear sister! Repent of this sin and then set aside a special portion of each day to be dedicated to close communion with the Lord. Not only will this delight your Savior, but you will also be filled with much peace and joy yourself!
There's something I want to point our about this verse. It says that the prayers of the upright are a delight to Him. This means that the prayers of those who are not upright or righteous are not delightful to Him whatsoever. This is because the person who is chained in unrighteousness doesn't have a heart and soul yielded completely to His will. This person's prayers, therefore, will be rebellious in nature, selfish, and unpleasing to the Lord. So, if you've found yourself giving into temptation a lot lately, repent of those sins! After you've done so, your prayers will once again be a blessed delight to your merciful Savior!
OW! That is wrenchingly said!
ReplyDeleteI think that if we ever comprehended the depth of Christ's love, we might die from the utter shock and wonder of it. Even though I undestand just a little bit of it, I often don't feel like it really happened (btw, did you know there is a big historical camp that believes the Lord never literally existed?) or feel anything whatsoever about it. Of course not feeling anything doesn't have to be bad, and feeling something can be used as a screen for lack of real love. Still, I do wish I could feel and understand more of it. But even when I don't feel something, I still try to live like it did happen, still try to talk to Him. If He does love me this much, surely He can tolerate my lukewarm, feeble prayers, even somehow wants them!
I remember another devotional you some time ago, where you talked about how you tended to run to your friends or parents before Jesus. That was a great devotional too, like this one.
Monika
"devotional you /wrote/ some time ago" Aaaack, I am sorry!
ReplyDeleteMonika