God’s Delight

A friend of mine read Psalm 149:4 recently:

For the LORD takes pleasure in his people;
he adorns the humble with salvation.

It’s easy to read this and to think that God takes delight on us based on how well we’re doing. But when we’re at our best, there’s not enough there to please him. Our best works are like the messy drawings that a young child holds up. God’s delight is not based on our performance.

It’s hard to believe that the LORD takes pleasure in his people.

Tozer writes:

The Lord takes peculiar pleasure in His saints. Many think of God as far removed, gloomy and mightily displeased with everything, gazing down in a mood of fixed apathy upon a world in which He has long ago lost interest; but this is to think erroneously. True, God hates sin and can never look with pleasure upon iniquity, but where men seek to do God’s will He responds in genuine affection.

Christ in His atonement has removed the bar to the divine fellowship. Now in Christ all believing souls are objects of God’s delight. “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.”

Truly amazing.