Christian Living

Enjoyed By God

by Terry Barlow
12/17/13
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We've heard from the catechisms and rightly so how as believers our purpose is to enjoy God and glorify Him forever. And how in doing that the result is that God will be pleased with us. But I've rarely heard anything about God enjoying us in return. But the truth is that God enjoys us as we enjoy God. Think about it, can you imagine yourself enjoying another's presence when that one is barely tolerating or is oblivious of your own presence? What helps release us to enjoy another's company is their obvious enjoyment of our company. Or can you imagine yourself not enjoying another's presence when that one seems so fulfilled in and because of your presence? At the very least our curiousity is aroused. The Garden of Eden (Delight) was called Eden not only because Adam and Eve delighted in God's and each other's presence and in what had been created for them, but because God delighted in their presence as long as they dwelt obediently within His very broad and generous parameters. Only one tree was out of bounds after all, only one tree of the many trees of the Garden. We need to recover a sense of the pleasure of God, that is a sense of the "pleased presence" of God. We need to recover that sense of the delightedness of God that Adam and Eve surely had before their (and our) fateful Fall, that not only alienated them from God and each other, and the lovely environment, but also from THEMSELVES. Which means they also lost the capacity for a healthy enjoyment and love of themselves. After all, if God could enjoy them before the onset of that alienation, and they were in harmony with God and walking in daily agreement with God, then they found it an easy thing to enjoy themselves too, and to sense God's delight in that process.