Jesus Delights

Jeremiah 9:24

“but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving-kindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD”

Jesus Delights 

            In the next three weeks we are going to investigate God’s loving-kindness, justice and righteousness. The basis of this study will be Jeremiah 9:24 where all three attributes are listed and the command is to boast in the Lord who exercises them. We will begin this week by focusing on the word “Delight”. How do we begin to define the word delight?

           All of our days consist of doing things that we like to do. The choices we make on a moment by moment basis are choices that we think will bring us the most joy. The list is endless. Should I take a left hand turn or should I take a right hand turn? Should I eat at Subway or MacDonalds? Should I take out the trash or let it stay in the basket? When a person treats us a certain way we react in the way that we think will make us happy. The thoughts we think are thoughts we think will make us most happy. What we are doing is making choices that exercise our will or, in other words, making choices that we delight in.

                The word “delight” can be interchanged with the word “will”. Other words that translate the Hebrew word in this passage for “delight” are; desire, favour, like, move, be (well) pleased, have pleasure and would. The Greek Old Testament word with the same meanings translates the Hebrew word “delight” to thelēma (the-la-ma). Our English word that we use the most to translate thelēma in the New Testament is “will.”

                Here are some examples of how this word is used in the New Testament:

• ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. – Matthew 6:10
• “For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.” – Mark 3:35
• “who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” – John 1:13
• “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,” – Colossians 1:1
• “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;” – 1 Thessalonians 4:3
• ““Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”” – Revelation 4:10

                The word “will,” can be replaced with words like choice, inclination, desire, pleasure and delight. The reason why this week’s focus is on the word delight is because a lot of our perceptions of God are of one who is reluctant in what He does. The picture is usually of God with a stern look on His face. Hopefully you are seeing by this week’s study that God has a smile on His face and is happy about exercising loving-kindness, justice and righteousness. His will is what pleases Him and that benefits us greatly!

                We are all objects of God’s will. It was His delight to give you existence. It is His delight to show you love, exercise His justice and declare you righteous through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. On the authority of this word we can say that our Lord has a huge smile on His face towards those who believe. It was the delight of Jesus to save you. Let’s be thankful that our Lord is one whose will, choice, inclination, desire, pleasure is in exercising loving-kindness, justice and righteousness. What a wonderful God He is! May your hearts be filled with His “will.”