Verse: Zephaniah 3:17
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.”

Devotion
What do you delight in? What brings you joy? What do you look forward to? Spending time with a loved one? Vacation? Going to a special event like a concert or ball game? Eating out with friends? Hanging out with your kids? All of the above?

Tonight my wife and I are going on a date. This combines two things I take great delight in: going out for dinner and hanging out with Mandy. I’m excited. Been looking forward to it for a couple days now.

Now, I’m going to tell you something that I would bet you are going to struggle to believe (I know I do).

God looks forward to being with you. 

What does it mean that God takes great delight in his people? GREAT delight??? What if you could believe that about yourself? Do you think of God being overjoyed to see you? Excited when you come to him in prayer? Do you think of God singing songs of rejoicing over you????? Probably not.

We tend to think of God being frustrated with us, or demanding of us, or upset with us. I wonder what it would do for us if we could reframe how we think about how God thinks about us?

Today can you just choose to believe this? Choose to believe that God is delighted in you. John tells us that indeed we love because God “first loved us” (1 John 4:19) and Jesus tells us that there is “no greater love” (John 15:13) than to die for your friends—which he then proceeded to do for us! Let us receive the great love and delight that God has for us today, and not insist on believing a lie that he is distant and displeased.

Author: Christian Dunn