THE
DIVINE PLEASURE – Part 2
1 Chronicles 29:17 I know also, my Elohim, that thou triest the heart, and hast
pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of mine
heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I seen with joy
thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly unto thee.
18 O IAUE, Elohim of
Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart
of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee:
The purpose of all creation is to please its maker, to take joy in Him
and to walk before Him in righteousness (to be “very good” again).
We observed in our last
post that IAUE created all things unto His pleasure and creation was pleasing
to Him because in its created state, it was very good. It was intrinsically perfect and pure and
righteous. Man (Adam and Eve) was very good.
Their every act, every word, every thought was pure and consistent with
the nature and will of IAUE. When that
ceased to be, when man “fell” and chose a different path to that which IAUE had
set before them, they ceased to be good.
They ceased to be righteous.
Romans 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that
understandeth, there is none that seeketh after Elohim.
12 They are all gone out of
the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Romans 8:6 For to be carnally
minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
7 Because the carnal mind
is enmity against IAUE: for it is not subject to the law of IAUE, neither
indeed can be.
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please
IAUE.
Restoring that lost
goodness and righteousness is why Messiah came into the world. Man lost sight of who he was and why he
existed. Yahushua came to restore that sight to a blind mankind. Mankind was blind because in the fall, man
became servant to the kingdom of darkness.
Man had no light by which to see the goodness and righteousness of IAUE. Yahushua came as the light of the world so
that those in darkness could see the Light of IAUE’s goodness and righteousness.
Isaiah 9:2 The
people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the
land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.
John 8:12 Then spake Yahushua
again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me
shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
We all know that Messiah
came to bring forgiveness of sins to mankind.
The Scriptures declare this over and over again; but has it ever
occurred to you that man’s sins were his every thought, word and deed that ran
contrary to his creative purpose? When
man behaves contrary to that which brings IAUE pleasure, he transgresses his
creative purpose.
Imagine yourself with a
vacuum cleaner that you researched and studied to be the best product on the
market. You paid a good price for it and
found it to be an excellent vacuum cleaner that did a superior job of sweeping
your floors and carpets. This time, however,
you turn it on and begin walking it across the carpet; but its rotors stop
turning, and the vacuum ceases, and you are unable to clean your carpets.
Instantly, your attitude towards the vacuum cleaner is not one of joy. You cannot take pleasure in this machine that
was carefully designed and manufactured to do this one simple job; because it
is incapable of doing the job. It’s
broken. What do you do? Do you toss it out into the dumpster and
curse that it ever existed, or do you take it to someone who will repair it so
you can once again take joy in it doing the very thing for which it was
created? This is what IAUE did with us
in sending His son to rescue us from our broken condition.
It will take some time
of meditating on this idea before it takes root and grows fruit in your life.
It is not a commonly taught concept that we were created for IAUE’s pleasure.
To the natural mind, one might immediately consider, “IAUE is one selfish being
if he made everything just to please Himself.”
When you think about your own life; when you look around your house at
your home and your possessions; when you think of your life and all it entails;
you might recoil at the idea that you should consider all of it subject to a
tyrannical selfish being who might say, “Get rid of that. Stop doing that. Give those things away.” just so He can be
pleased. This, however, is the thinking
of the natural man, not the spiritual man.
It views pleasing IAUE as a combative purpose to pleasing yourself. The natural man is the selfish one, not IAUE.
When IAUE desires His
creation to behave in a way that is pleasing to Him, He is wanting the very
best outcome for his creation. There is no selfishness in IAUE. IAUE is light and in Him is no darkness at
all (1 John 1:5). When He created man
for His pleasure; He designed within man the ability to measure his own joy and
pleasure and sense of fulfillment when he is living to please IAUE. Pleasing
IAUE is man’s greatest pleasure.
Psalm 16:11 Thou wilt shew me the
path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are
pleasures for evermore.
Let’s consider our vacuum
cleaner example. Let’s imaging the vacuum
cleaner had a life, a mind of its own.
How would it feel if it could no longer do what it was created to
do? What would it devote itself to if it
could no longer vacuum floors? Men who
come back from wars with an amputated leg often feel they are now only half a
man and what good is it to keep on living?
See? When we view our purpose in
jeopardy, we fail to see the worth of continuing to live. We must learn to think of our purpose being
jeopardized with every act or word or thought that is unrighteous; and that
does not pursue that which is good.
We must eradicate wrong
thoughts about IAUE; and learn the true nature of our Father in Heaven. The joy He takes in us is reproduced within
us through our increasing knowledge of Him.
His joy feeds our joy as His pleasure in us is met by our living unto
His pleasure.
David prophesied about
Messiah coming to restore us to our creative purpose.
Psalm 40:7 Then said I, Lo, I come:
in the volume of the book it is written of me,
8 I delight to do thy
will, O my Elohim: yea, thy law is within my heart.
When the writer to the
Hebrews recited this prophecy, he gave it more context.
Hebrews 10:5 Wherefore when he cometh
into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body
hast thou prepared me:
6 In burnt offerings and
sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the
book it is written of me,) to do thy
will, O Elohim.
8 Above when he said, Sacrifice
and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not,
neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;
9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O Elohim.
He taketh away the first that he may establish the second.
This institution of the
Torah, the law of Moses, was in part to provide types and shadows of the coming
Messiah; so the Torah would lead the Hebrew people unto their Messiah. Once discovering and embracing their Messiah,
they would no longer need the shadow of the true. They would have the true. So, sacrifices were never offered to achieve
the righteousness of IAUE. They were not
acts that demonstrated the goodness of man such that it would appeal to IAUE’s
pleasure. He NEVER took pleasure in the
slaughtering of animals. What He took
pleasure in was the performance of His will.
Yahushua came, as it was written in Psalms, to do IAUE’s will. What did this merit from IAUE?
Matthew 3:17 And
lo a voice from heaven, saying, This
is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased.
Luke 3:21 Now when all the people
were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying,
the heaven was opened,
22 And the Holy Ghost
descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven,
which said, Thou art my beloved Son;
in thee I am well pleased.
Matthew 17:5 While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them:
and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
2 Peter 1:17 For he received from God
the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the
excellent glory, This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased.
If Yahushua devoted his
entire life to pleasing His Father, should not we do the same? Do you imagine that doing His Father’s will
was unpleasant to Yahushua? Do you think
Yahushua ever thought of IAUE as being a selfish deity that every now and then
should be ignored because he had a better idea of what to do or what to
say? Or can you see that doing His
Father’s will was his chiefest joy? It
is not unlike little children who do things just to see their father’s smile of
delight in them. Nothing thrills the
heart of a child more than seeing their father taking delight in them. It is
built within us to take joy in our father’s delight.
The sooner we commit to
this life, a life of pleasing IAUE, the sooner we are going to discover how
everything IAUE has given to us works through that medium of shared pleasure in
each other.
Next week we will study
the correlation between the will of IAUE and the pleasure of IAUE.
No comments:
Post a Comment