A Devotion from Stephen Charnock

Delight yourself in the Lord.  
-Psalm 37:4

This delight springs from the Spirit of God. Not a spark of fire on your own hearth is able to kindle this spiritual delight; it is the Holy Spirit who breathes such a heavenly heat into our affections. The Spirit is the fire that kindles the soul, the spring that moves the watch, the wind that drives the ship. The swiftest ship with spread sails will be only sluggish in its motion unless the wind fills its sails; without this Spirit we are in a weak and sickly condition, our breath short, a heavy and troublesome asthma upon us. “When I called, you answered me; you made me bold and stouthearted” (Ps. 138:3). Just as prayer is the work of the Spirit in the heart, so delight in prayer owes itself to the same author.

[This delight springs] from grace. The Spirit kindles and gives us the oil of grace to make the lamp burn clear. There is not only need of fire to kindle the lamp but of oil to preserve the flame. Natural people may have their affections kindled in a way of common working, but they will soon faint and die, as the flame of cotton will dim and vanish if there is no oil to nourish it.

[Delight in the Lord springs] from a good conscience. Guilt will come trembling and with a sad face into the presence of God’s majesty. A guilty child cannot with cheerfulness come into a displeased parent’s presence. A soul smoked with hell cannot with delight approach heaven. Guilty souls, in regard of the injury they have done to God, will be afraid to come, and in regard of the soot of sin with which they are defiled and the blackness they have contracted, they will be ashamed to come. They know that by their sins they would provoke his anger—not allure his love. A soul under conscience of sin cannot look up to God. Nor will God with favor look down on it. Jonah was asleep after his sin and was outdone in readiness to pray even by idolaters. The mariners jogged him but could not get him, that we read of, to call on that God whom he had offended. Where there is corruption, the sparks of sin will kindle that tinder and weaken a spiritual delight.