"The only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied"

What is it that truly delights you? What is it that you take pleasure in? We delight in things and seek to enjoy them because we are looking for satisfaction in them. However, Jonathan Edwards recognised that there was only one thing which which we can be truly satisfied, to look for satisfaction anywhere else is futile:

The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean. (Jonathan Edwards Works, II, 244).

If we are seeking satisfaction anywhere else it is both futile and dishonouring to God. The prophet Jeremiah speaks about this in this way: "my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, brken cisterns that can hold no water." (Jeremiah 2:13). To turn from the spring of living water to broken cisterns is both foolish and sinful. It is a rejection of the all-sufficiency and all-satisfying nature of Christ, and seeking satisfaction in other things which can never satisfy, but will only leave us thirsting more.

This is idolatory. Idolatory is seeking satisfaction in anything else besides God. It is seeking what only Christ can provide from something other than Him. It is delighting and seeking to find our enjoyment in anything above Him. This is both stupid and sinful.

So what are you delighting in today? Let us be those who, by God's grace, drink deeply from this fountain and no other.