The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)
Do you ever get weary of dealing with dirt? It is less than delightful. We lather, rinse, and repeat the cycle of washing our grubby hair an estimated 10,000 times in a lifetime. We brush our tarnished pearly whites about 45,000 throughout life. And who can count how many mud-caked car tires, mower decks or food splattered dishes we wash in all of our years? The dirt just keeps coming back. The cycle is exhausting.
OUR HEART HAS A DIRT CYCLE
Our heart also has a dirt cycle. Sin pollutes our heart daily. But unlike the exhaustion we feel when we keep cleaning physical dirt, God delights in cleansing our hearts.
MOURNING OVER SIN
In Nehemiah 8, God’s people gather as Ezra read God’s Word to them. This delights God! They have not spent time in God’s Word in a long time. The crowd stands for half a day, listening intently as Ezra reads. Their hearts are moved; tears running down their faces. They realize how dirty they have become. How far they are from what God asked them to be. Their agreement with God about their sin also delights God.
GOD DOES NOT WANT US TO REMAIN STUCK
I love Ezra’s reaction to the people’s tears. After they mourn over their accumulated spiritual dirt, he tells them it is time to celebrate. Mourning over our soiled hearts is appropriate, but God does not want us to get stuck there. He is delighted with us! He wants us to move ahead, accept forgiveness and live in the joy and freedom His forgiveness gives us.
GOD DELIGHTS IN WASHING US UP
Lather, rinse, and repeat. Spiritually, we follow God, stray, and repent. This is the cycle God’s people lived in the Old Testament. The bad news is 2,500 years later, people have not changed. We regularly miss the target of living in obedience to God. The good news is, God has not changed. He still joyfully gathers us in His arms and washes us up, every single time we see our messy heart and want to be clean. And it delights Him!
Where do you currently find yourself? Mourning a need to change or permanently stuck in disappointment with yourself?
STEPS TO JOY
- Tell God about how you are feeling. If it is a sin, then recognize it as sin and repent of it.
- Then listen to the comfort he is speaking to you. Accept the forgiveness he freely offers with delight not disdain.
- Allow the joy of the Lord’s delight over you to sink deeply into your soul and strengthen you.
Click to read more about what true repentance really means