Identity (Part 4): Satisfied in God
This post picks up from the last post on how we ought to find our delight in God by finding all of our satisfaction in Him.
God, Our Only Satisfaction (73:26)
73:26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Asaph imagines the most dire situation—his death, when all that he is and that he has perishes and fails—and says that even then, God is his strength and his portion.
“Strength” here is literally “rock.” The Bible calls God a rock often. Just one example:
Ps 62 (ESV)
62:6 He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress;
I shall not be shaken.
62:7 On God rests my salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God.
The land of Israel was and still is filled with rocks, from little pebbles to boulders to mountains to cliffs. Think Yosemite, Mt. Zion. Calling God the “rock of my heart” is like calling Him my fortress from the storm, my battle shield in the war, my refuge and shelter. God is Asaph’s confidence; He will not fail. When Asaph is weak, God is strong, and that is his boast.
“Portion” means one’s share or one’s allotment in life. Imagine there is one giant pizza and each person in the world gets a part of that pizza. One’s slice would be their portion. When Asaph says “God is my portion” he is saying that while the wicked may get their portion of prosperity, ease, comfort in this life, he will content if his portion is God alone.
God is His sufficient portion. God is enough. Having God alone makes him full, because God alone satisfies.
The only way you will desire God supremely is if you are convinced that He alone will satisfy.
Solomon’s Folly
At the end of King Solomon’s life, after a decades of wasting his God-given wisdom, indulging in every pleasure under the sun—the arts, food, wine, building projects, 700 wives and 300 concubines—Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. The refrain of that book is: “Vanities of vanities!” Or “Futility of futilities!” Or, the Keith version: “What’s the point! Why live for the transient things of the earth!”
Listen to how he lived
Ecclesiastes 2
2:1 I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.”
But behold, this also was vanity.
2:2 I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?”
2:3 I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly…
2:4 I made great works.
I built houses and planted vineyards for myself.
2:5 I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees.
2:6 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees.
2:7 I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house.
I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem.
2:8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces.
I got singers, both men and women,
and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.
2:9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem.
Also my wisdom remained with me.
2:10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.
I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.
2:11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it,
and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
Solomon got everything this life had to offer. He was literally king. He got the best food, extravagant mansions, endless entertainment, the most beautiful women in all the world. He had hobbies, fruit gardens, water parks, wealth beyond measure. Every pleasure that he saw, he got. And at the end of all his exploits and his toil, what did he say? “All was vanity and a striving after the wind.” Chase the wind all your life; you’ll never get it. Lust after the pleasures of this earth; you’ll never be happy. “There is nothing to be gained under the sun.”
The world dangles the carrot of prestige and praise from men, bigger houses and better cars, more comfort and fuller stomachs, promising true joy. It lies! Solomon got all that you could ever get and more, and still he was not satisfied. Why? Because as Augustine said:
You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
We were made to find rest, delight, satisfaction, hope, pleasure, joy supremely in God. When we turn to everything else, we always come up empty.
If you became king or queen of the world, your beautiful face on every billboard, your name praised by every tongue, your every earthly desire met, your every potential realized, all your dreams come true yet without God, the restlessness of your heart, the pain in your soul would not be soothed in the least.
God alone satisfies the ache for meaning and purpose. You were made to delight in Him. God alone is worth living for. Everything and everyone else leads to death. You were made to be happy in Him.
This is where, by His mercy, God brought Asaph. He drove him from doubt to devotion, from despair to delight. God reminded him that satisfaction can be found only in God. And so, too, are we reminded of basic Christianity. Fundamentally, Christians want God. He has transformed us from the inside out to want Him, to desire Him, to find our all in Him.
God Alone
This is what we proclaim when we sing:
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art.
The question is, do we believe it?
If you are a Christian, you truly believe this truly, but not yet fully. We say with that father, “I believe! Help my unbelief.” Let me get really practical. If you struggle to find satisfaction and delight in God, think upon the rich blessings we have in God through Jesus Christ.
For “you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. …Christ…is our life…” (Colossians 3:3-4).
God has placed us “…in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
Christ is the bread of life (John 6), the light of the world (8:12, 9:5), the door to the sheepfold (10:7, 9), the good shepherd (10:11, 14), the resurrection and the life (11:25), the way, the truth, and the life (14:6), the true vine (15:1, 5)
In other words, in the gospel of Christ, we don’t just get salvation and blessings from God. We get Jesus Himself, meaning we get God Himself. He is our life. He is our wisdom, our righteousness, our holiness, our redemption. He is our bread, our light, our entrance, our shepherd, our resurrection, our life, our way to God, our source. Love for Christ bursts forth when we behold who He is and what He has done. Your desire for Him and your delight in Him will correspond to how deeply you eat the richest of spiritual foods, bathing your heart and soul in the truth of the gospel.
So if you want to see God as your supreme desire, God as your only satisfaction, meditate on who and what Christ is in the gospel. We love Him because He loved us first.
If you are a not a Christian, all this talk about loving God and finding delight in Him probably seems like the strangest thing in the world. But to you I say, what else really satisfies? What do you live for, and will it last? I plead with you: Christ, Jesus Christ, He is the only God who is worthy to live for; He will set you free!
To Enjoy God Forever
An old Christian catechism called the Westminster Shorter Confession (WSC) asks:
Q: What is the chief end of man?
A: The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
Notice “the chief end” that is, the ultimate purpose, supreme objective, is singular. Yet, it seems to list two things as the chief end of man: “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” The WSC Q1 combines two realities and makes them one.
To glorify God means to magnify Him, to treat Him as awesome, as worthy of praise, to worship Him.
Rom 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
To enjoy God is what we’ve been learning from Psalm 73. God is to be our delight and our satisfaction.
But what is the relationship between glorifying God and enjoying God? Are these two chief ends? Do I glorify God, or do I enjoy Him? One seems to be God-centered, and one seems to be me-centered!
John Piper argues that these two concepts—glorifying God and enjoying God—are actually one and the same.
“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied him Him.”
Or, to modify WSC Q1: The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. Or to put the same truth three different ways:
Our single purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
We exist to delight in God supremely for His glory.
When we delight in God, enjoy God, treasure God, are happy in God, find satisfaction in God, set our affections upon God, supremely, we glorify, exult, celebrate Him as He is: the wondrous God who is worthy of all praise, honor, and glory, as the all-sufficient, all-satisfying, all-captivating God over all.
When, by His grace, we do that, everything in our lives revolves around Him. We God-worshipping, God-centered, God-saturated, God-entranced, God-obsessed Christians. And when He is supreme, the good gifts He gives to us find their proper place as love gifts that remind us of the Giver’s love. And even when, in love, our God takes some of those gifts away during this life, we rejoice, for we have He who is supreme delight, and we can say with Asaph:
73:25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
73:26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Reflection Questions
What place do affections have in the Christian life?
What are you tempted to delight in more than God?
Have you experienced the futility and emptiness of this world and its promises? How have those experiences convinced you that God alone is your satisfaction?
What can you practically do to delight in Christ supremely?
Who in your life can help you love the Lord more wholeheartedly?