Category: <span>Enjoying God</span>

This week, I just reread Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus. Paul and his team had spent three years there making disciples and establishing this church in a very pagan culture. For Ephesus was the center of worship for the fertility goddess Artemis, and a stronghold for sorcery.

What caught my attention this time reading Ephesians was the vast number of times Paul referred to love. Paul spoke of love 17 times in this letter in the following ways:

God’s love for us
Jesus’ love for us
God’s love for His Son, Jesus Christ
Our love for God and Jesus
Our love for each other
Christ’s love for the church
We are to walk in the way of love
A husband’s love for his wife

Paul records two prayers for the Ephesian believers (1:15-23 and 3:14-21) and both times prays for their love. Paul ends his letter with these words, “Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.” (Ephesians 6:24) Clearly, love for the Lord and for others plays a central role in our lives as followers of Jesus and Paul wanted to get this message across to the Ephesians.

But just 30 years later the Lord Jesus dictated this chilling rebuke to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:4, “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.” Another translation says it like this, “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love Me or each other as you did at first!” (NLT)

In Jesus’ letter to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2, He commended them for their deeds, their hard work, their perseverance, their stance against wickedness, their ability to discern false teachers, and their hatred for the practices of the Nicolaitans (a false cult). They were doing all those things right, BUT they had forsaken theirlove for Jesus and love for each other.

This reminds me of what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13 about the preeminence of love:

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

The other deeds that Jesus drew attention to in His letter to the church at Ephesus are not unimportant, but without love they’re empty. Jesus urges them: “Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” (Revelation 2:5)

History reveals that the church at Ephesus continued for some time, but it eventually died and its “lampstand”—its witness, influence and presence was removed, and it no longer exists today. How sad!

I find Jesus’ rebuke so chilling because in just 30 short years, after none other than the Apostle Paul himself helped plant this church, it had already forsaken its first love, despite having everything else in order.

This is sobering and compels us to think about our own condition both personally and as a church. To what extent have we forsaken our love for Him and others?

In a culture in which we’re used to being able to measure everything, love seems to defy quantifying. Love is a matter of the heart and defines our motivations. That’s why it’s possible to do the right things in the wrong way or for the wrong reasons. We can become enamored with our service instead of with Christ.

Love may defy quantifying, but it doesn’t defy detection. We can gauge our heart’s yearnings and our motivations. In marriage (and other close relationships), we can easily discern the difference between passionate love for our spouse and feelings grown cold.

One of the telltale indicators of genuine, heartfelt love for Christ and others is that genuine love is all about Him. Genuine love is all about the other person. A passion that focuses on ourselves and what we can gain from a relationship isn’t love at all.

We must constantly renew and refresh our love for Christ and for others by focusing on Him, delighting in Him, and valuing Him above all else.

The Psalmist wrote, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides You.” (Psalm 73:25)

Isaiah said, “I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God.” (Isaiah 61:10)

Paul declared, “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Philippians 3:8)

And finally, “Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.” (Ephesians 6:24)

I must confess that for most of my life I had no concept of what it means to enjoy God. Fearing God, worshiping Him, loving Him, glorifying Him, serving Him—yes; but enjoying Him?

Then, nearly 20 years ago, I picked up the little book by John Piper, The Dangerous Duty of Delight. In it he demonstrates from Scripture that the enjoyment of God, or “pursuing pleasure in God is our highest calling.” He also made a profound observation that I cling to, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

The idea of enjoying God is not some new twist or the latest fad. Nearly 400 years ago, the writers of the Westminster Catechism stated, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” But the enjoyment of God didn’t originate there either.

I’ve loved the Psalms and have been drawn to them since I was a child. I’ve often read five Psalms and a Proverb a day as part of my quiet time with the Lord. Because of my familiarity with the Psalms, it didn’t take much effort to recognize that the enjoyment of God is central to its message. Here are just a few examples:

Psalm 32:11, “Rejoice in the Lord and be glad…”

Psalm 34:1, “I will extol the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips.”

Psalm 37:4, “Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

Psalm 42:2, “My soul thirsts for God…”

Psalm 63:5, “I will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise You.”

Psalm 73:25, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.”

“Enjoy” is a verb that means to find pleasure or delight in someone, an experience, or an object. We might talk about enjoying a movie or a restaurant. The problem is we view those enjoyments as matters of personal taste and based on our mood. We might enjoy one type of food one night, yet not on another. Such “enjoyment” is fickle and subjective.

When we talk about enjoying God, neither our personal taste nor our mood comes into play. As different personalities, we may express our enjoyment of God in various ways, but our personality or mood should not determine whether we enjoy Him.

“Joy” is a noun and describes the sense of pleasure or delight we find in someone or something when we enjoy them. Regarding our enjoyment of God, Peter wrote, “Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.” (1 Peter 1:8)

In Matthew 13, Jesus told the parable of the hidden treasure, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” Jesus Christ is that hidden treasure over which we rejoice! We treasure or enjoy Him above all else!

So many people have such a heavy, burdensome view of God that taints their relationship with Him. Have you ever heard someone say, “The Bible says I have to love you, but it doesn’t mean I have to like you!” I think some even see their love for God in this way as obligatory, instead of welling up in joy as the above Psalms proclaim.

We know that He loves us and wants us to love Him. But God isn’t glorified by some cheap form of obligatory love. Enjoying Him is one of the most genuine forms of expressing love toward Him, or anyone else for that matter.

Enjoying God also draws others to Him and is central to the message of the Gospel. When we’ve enjoyed a great movie or the delicacies at a new restaurant, we can’t help but tell others. Through our joy and enthusiasm such expressions “go viral.” So it is when we express to others our enjoyment of God, or they simply observe our enjoyment of God in the way we live.

When the angel appeared to the shepherds the night Jesus was born, he declared, “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.” (Luke 2:10)

And when Paul and Silas were imprisoned in Philippi, I believe it was through their prayers and praise to God that the jailer even knew to ask, “What must I do to be saved?” And after hearing the Gospel, “The jailer… was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.” (Acts 16:25-34)

Our enjoyment of God also impacts the way we view eternity. Again, many have a boring view of what heaven will be like sitting around on clouds strumming harps! That’s not at all what eternity with our Lord will be like. Instead, here’s how David portrayed it:

“No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice. My body rests in safety. For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your holy one to rot in the grave. You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.” (Psalm 16:9-11)

A friend of ours hearing for the first time that God urges us to enjoy Him, blurted out, “This changes everything!” Learning to enjoy God, finding our joy in Him, and being fully satisfied in Him is lifechanging.

Our enjoyment of God changes the way we interact with Him. Enjoying Him results in praise and adoration and powerfully impacts our own joy. The writers of the Westminster Catechism were right: God designed us to enjoy Him!

“I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God.” (Isaiah 61:10)

Enjoying God

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