The Altogether Lovely Delight

Beloved Brothers and Sisters, what a blessed and transcendent joy this joy in the Lord is! Sometimes you joy in your children, yet they die and then you sorrow. At other times you rejoice in those who are grown up and are prospering, but perhaps they treat you with ingratitude and then, again, your joy is gone. You joy in your health and that is a great blessing—but you sicken and your joy departs. Some rejoice in their riches, but wealth takes to itself wings and flies away. You may joy in a choice friend, but after a while you may be forsaken and forgotten. You may joy, perhaps, in past achievements and there may come to you a joy in your prospects for the future—but there is no joy equal to joy in God! Suppose I have nothing in the house but God? Suppose there is nothing for me to rely upon but God, nothing that I can call my own but God? Well, is that a little thing? Are not all creatures but the visions of an hour? But the Creator is the substantial All in All, so that he who has God has all that he can possibly need! God, to His people, is the fullness out of which all their needs shall be supplied. What a mercy it is that when we can joy in nothing else, we can joy in God! We can joy in His power, for He can help us. We can joy in His faithfulness, for He cannot fail us. We can joy in His Immutability, for He changes not and, therefore, we are not consumed. We can joy in every thought that we have of Him, for altogether and observed from every point of view, He is the delight of His people!

Charles Spurgeon
http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols43-45/chs2550.pdf