Victoria Osteen - Our Delight In The Lord Shapes Our Desires
Hallelujah! Amen and amen! You know, we all want God to do great things in our life. I think the cry of our heart is, "God, do something in me and through me. Let 2017 be a year that you really bring forth the dreams and desires in my heart". But you know what's interesting about God's promises is they always come with a condition. Usually we have to do something, and then God'll do something. It comes with a condition, a stipulation.
You know, I find it very interesting because if God can get us to move, then he can move. It's almost as if his condition prepares our heart. It postures us to receive what he has. You see, if we just wish all day, if we're just fishin' in the wishin' pond, we're not doing anything. God says, "I am a partner with you. We are joint heirs in Jesus Christ". He wants us to be active and participate in what he wants to do in our life. So as we're standing here, saying, "God, do something amazing through me and in me", "Bring forth my desires", listen to what God's condition is. It's found in Psalm 37:5, and the Bible says it like this: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart".
When you delight yourself in God, he will shape in you his desires so that he can bring the best out of you. God wants to shape in you his desires. We all want our desires to come to pass. Oh, we love to hear God's promises. We want God's promises, but what are we delighting in? What are we pursuing? What are we givin' our time to? You see, the scripture says that, when we "Delight in the Lord", which means, when we find joy and happiness and pleasure in God, it will shape those desires for God. You see, sometimes we have the wrong desires, and we're struggling, trying to make those things happen.
I think sometimes we get it backwards. We have a desire, and we forget to find out what we delight in. We forget what gives us fulfillment. We forget to pursue those things that give us joy, peace, and strength, and allow those things to shape us. Our delight shapes our desires. When Joel and I first started dating, I worked in my family's Jewelry store. I worked on Saturdays, so I would take off on Fridays. Joel worked at the church, so Sunday he would tape his father's messages. He would edit them, get them ready to be broadcast on television. And so he worked on Sundays, and I worked on Saturdays, so we basically didn't see each other on the weekend that much. So since I took off on Fridays, Joel decided that he was gonna take off on Fridays.
The only thing was this: on my day off on Friday, I wanted to go to the mall! I wanted to run errands. I wanted to do the things that I needed to do on my day off. But you know what was really great is Joel didn't care. Joel wanted to be with me, so Joel would go to the mall. He would go with me to the mall because he just wanted to spend the day with me. He delighted in that. When we first started dating, Joel had season tickets to the rockets. In fact, this was the former Compaq Center, for those of you who don't know, and our first date was right here at a rockets basketball game. He was such a fan. He loved the games. And I loved Joel. I loved to be with him, anyway, at that point. You could say I delighted in Joel. So it motivated me to go to the basketball games. It motivated me to become a sports fan.
See, I doubt it, if I didn't enjoy being with Joel, I doubt I would've been so ambitious to go to all those basketball games, and I can tell you this: if Joel wouldn't have found joy in being with me, he wouldn't have been in the mall. You see, he liked the mall because he liked bein' with me. Do you get what I'm tryin' to say here? Our delight shapes our desires. It wasn't the mall Joel liked. It was bein' with me he liked. It wasn't that I was such an avid fan. I just wanted to be with Joel, so I became a fan. Isn't it interesting, when we delight in the Lord, we want what God wants for us. We wanna do what God does. We wanna be where God is. The things that are important to God, all of a sudden, become very important to us.
You see, God wants to shape your desire when you delight in him, when you find fulfillment in him. He wants to put those dreams in you that will come to pass. He wants you to dream big dreams, but he already has a plan for you. When you delight in him, then your dreams will come to pass. I find it interesting that the apostle Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 6, and this is the message translation, and it really sums up what I'm tryin' to say. It says, "The heart regulates the hands". Paul was saying, "What you have in your heart, what you find delight in, you're gonna put your hands to".
See, what is in your heart is gonna drive you with great passion and determination. Your hands and your heart go together, just like your delight and your desire. See, the apostle Paul was sayin', "When your heart's right, you'll put your hands to the right thing". God wants your heart to be his garden. He wants to plant his dreams and his desires in your heart because he wants to bring forth God-opportunities. He wants to bring forth out of you God-miracles, God-moments in 2017. Listen, don't let the wrong desires cause you to struggle. Spend your time with God. Find out what he wants you to do. Delight in him. Take pleasure in the fact that he is your God, that he chose you, that his plans for you are good and not evil. They're to give you a future and a hope.
You see, God wants our best. He doesn't want our leftovers. God doesn't want the end of your day when you're tired and a little miserable. God wants the best of your day. Get up every morning and greet God with a "Good morning, God"! Not a "Oh, God, it's morning". See, God wants our firstfruits. Throughout the day, we should have conversation with God. We should consult him for our decisions, bring him into our relationships, take him on the job with us, put his word in our heart because, when his word is in our heart, what will happen is it will come up out of us. It will guide us and give us great counsel and wisdom. Joel's dad used to say it like this: "Put God's word in your heart when you don't need it, and it'll come out of you when you do need it". God's wisdom will come out of you.
You know, Psalm 37 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart". Then it goes on to say, "Commit your ways to God, and he will do this". And it begins to say how you will overcome. Any challenge you face, he will be there. Your enemies won't get the best of you. You see, he's talking about delighting yourself, creating a desire for God, then your roots go down deep so you can be committed. You see, I delighted in being with Joel. I delighted in his friendship. I delighted getting to know him. My desire was formed that he would be my spouse. I married him. Thirty years later, I'm committed to that my guy. My roots are down deep. Paved through the highs and through the lows, he's mine, and I'm his. There's a commitment that's been formed.
See, there's a system to this: God is saying, "Delight before desire. Desire will take root, and commitment will steady you, strengthen you, and anchor you, and I will do this". He's saying, "When you're committed, you'll do what you don't feel like doin'". He's sayin', "When you're committed, you'll realize, even when it's hard, on the other side, there's a great reward". He's sayin', "Sooner or later, my way is the best way. Be committed and hang on in 2017. I'll get you where you need to be". God is a faithful God. He wants our heart. He wants our heart so that we can put our hands to his business, to his kingdom, so we can be successful, we can be happy.
Listen, we serve a happy God. God is up in heaven, the Bible says, laughing and enjoying things, and he wants us down here accomplishing, laughing, enjoying, overcoming, goin' from victory to victory. We serve a God who is committed to us, so let's be committed to him. I believe, if we will take time to invest and delight and dwell in our God, that he will ignite those passions and those desires, and we will abound in his grace, and we will be committed. Our hearts and our hands will be movin' in the right direction, and I believe we'll see miracles happen in 2017 that we never even expected. Amen? Amen. He's an awesome God.