July 20 – Supernatural Delight (Psalm 112)

“Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in his commands.”(Psalm 112:1)

IN WORD:
The greatest turning point in a person’s life is when salvation comes by grace through faith. Even so, many people struggle endlessly with the remnants of the sinful nature. Failure upon failure casts many of us into a sort of spiritual despair. We know we’re saved, but we can’t seem to live like it. We’re a living contradiction.
The greatest turning point in a believer’s life — after salvation, that is — is when pursuing God’s righteousness changes from an obligation to a delight. Trying to be holy always results in failure after failure. Falling in love with a righteous God results in progress. Failures still happen, but there’s a noticeably different approach to them. Instead of obsessing about shortcomings, we begin to obsess about God’s goodness. We can put sin behind us as the exception when we press on into our love for a holy God. Our focus is taken off of our works and placed appropriately on our Savior. Law no longer consumes us; grace does.
That doesn’t mean that the rules for living a godly life become less relevant. It means only that our method of growth changes. Instead of trying to eliminate all unrighteousness with legalistic rules, we focus our faith instead on the Righteous One. A fascination with His goodness has remarkable power to change us. A dread of the Law has none.

IN DEED:
There’s no question that God calls us to live a holy life, and there’s no question that God’s righteous standards are to be our standards as well. The only issue is how to attain our growth. Is it by hyper vigilance toward an unattainable Law or by a delightful fascination with the One who is holy? The standards of the two are not incompatible; but the power each one wields definitely is. No one has been made righteous by strict legalities (Galatians 3:11). The Law cannot impart life (Galatians 3:21).
How do we acquire this delight? Through faith, through prayer, and through the Holy Spirit of the delightful One. You can do the humanly impossible: Enjoy His commands.

“The righteousness of Jesus is the righteousness of a Godward relationship of trust, dependence, receptivity.”
-Michael Ramsey-