“I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:8)

What brought delight into the life of Jesus? He lived His life here as the incarnate Son of God in human flesh. What motivated Him? He saw the sins of mankind. He faced trials encountering people from the Pharisees and Sadducees to those who were struggling in life with diseases, and sin, along with the many who followed Him for all the wrong reasons. He experienced trials even with His own Disciples, who were not quite getting what he was teaching them.

Jesus has just encountered the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. The Disciples had returned with food for Jesus. It is at this moment that Jesus opens up about His motivation for this life. As the Disciples urge Him to eat, He says, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about. . .. ‘My food,’ said Jesus, ‘is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.’” (John 4:32, 34) There it is. Jesus has one single motivation in this life: to do the will of His Father.

Jesus had fed the multitudes. They wanted to make Him king, even by force. The Disciples had headed to Capernaum on the lake, even though Jesus was not with them. That night Jesus had come to them walking on the water. When they arrived at Capernaum, the crowd found them again. Jesus knew their motivation at that time was because He had met their physical needs. He would remind them of their spiritual needs. Thus, Jesus would tell them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.” (John 6:35-36) Jesus would then tell the crowd of His purpose and motivation. “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.” (John 6:38)

After He had chosen the twelve, Jesus was in a home teaching. His family had come to take Him with them. Jesus looked at the crowd. He now explained who His eternal family would be. “Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’” (Mark 3:34-35)

The delight in Jesus’ life was to do the will of God. It should also be our delight. He saved us in order to give us a new life which comes to us through God’s love and His desire for us to know Him and His heart. We are to learn His delight, thus, the interceding of the Holy Spirit.

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:26-28)

Growing in our relationship with Jesus Christ, we move from those who know His love to those who have His delights.

“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:10-14)

In the Love of Jesus,

Michael Block