God`s Great Pleasure

It gave the Lord great pleasure to adopt us into His own family. This is the best news ever! But for many of us this is so difficult to believe and understand, because we live lives where we’re constantly being reminded of everything we still need to achieve. We are bombarded with messages informing us that we`re not yet good enough. We need to perform better at work, achieve higher goals, lose weight, and exercise more. We need to be a better parent, spouse or child.

We even look at other Christians and feel that we`re not yet where they are, because we need to have more faith, patience, trust, kindness and love. The list can go on and on. We end up feeling guilty and inadequate most of the time. So we start striving to be better people. But it becomes a vicious cycle and we’re never satisfied.

If you stop for a while and really absorb today’s verse, it brings a quietness to your body, soul and spirit. The Lord is saying to you that He’s adopted you into His family, because He wanted to do that, and it gave Him great pleasure to do so. In Zephaniah 3:17 the Lord says: ‘The Lord your God is in the midst of you, a Mighty One, a Saviour [Who saves]! He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest [in silent satisfaction] and in His love He will be silent and make no mention [of past sins, or even recall them]; He will exult over you with singing’ (AMP).

At the end of this year, before we get too caught up in all the preparations for Christmas, let’s firstly focus on Jesus. For without Jesus, there’s no reason to celebrate Christmas. Without Him, we’re empty and caught up in the exhausting cycle that only keeps us striving to be better people. With Jesus, we have peace and the deep knowing that we belong to a heavenly family. The worldly standards becomes less, and Jesus becomes our everything. Jesus said ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End’ (Revelation 22:13), and the apostle Paul says ‘It`s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for’ (Ephesians 1:11, the Message).

Prayer: Dear Lord, thank You so much that in You there’s perfect peace and rest. Thank You that You delight in me, and that You planned for me to be part of Your family. Please forgive me for striving and comparing. I choose to focus on Your truth and Your Word. In You, I find myself. Amen.