Believing in God's Delight

This week we’ve been pondering what it means that God delights in us and, in return, invites us to delight in God. Two passages that come to mind about these things are these two:

A voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” - Mark 1:11

That phrase, “well-pleased,” is also translated “delight” other places in the New Testament. Here is God delighting in Jesus. These are God’s first words recorded to Jesus, right here at the beginning of his earthly ministry. A pretty great way to start out, right?

Those words evoke the same image from the old prophet:

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. - Zephaniah 3:17

In this passage, God is delighting over the people - even singing over them like a mom singing over her kids. And there’s a connection to the first passage, as well. Since the core theology of New Testament is that we are now “in Christ,” theologically speaking, in Christ we receive the same “with you I am well-pleased” blessing that Jesus received. So the Old and New Testaments are the same: we are delighted in by God!!

Can you sit quietly for a moment and perhaps read those scripture passages over yourself as a blessing today?

And for those who still struggle with condemning yourself, perhaps this might be encouraging:

Jesus does not come to announce the condemnation of the Father, nor even to save us from the condemnation of the Father, but rather to reveal the love of the Father for those already perishing and suffering condemnation. - Bradley Jersak, A More Christlike God