What gives God joy?

What loving father wouldn’t want the best for his children? A father tries to be a loving provider and to protect his family. God does the same thing. He’s a protector. He blesses people who are obedient to His word. Deuteronomy 30:9-10 says, “The Lord your God will make you abound in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your land for good. For the Lord will again rejoice over you for good as he rejoiced over your fathers, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the Law, and if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Many people want the blessing of our Lord without the relationship, but I’m telling you: It all comes in one package. The relationship and the blessings come together, and you’ll live the life that you’re called to live. Deutoronomy 30:19-20 says, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

Here, we see a loving God who reaches out to humanity, willing to bless, looking for opportunities to bless. If you want to know who God is, look at Jesus. In John 14:7, Jesus says: “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” The people closest to Jesus are asking Him to show them the Father, and He says, “Look at me.” In verse 11, He goes on to say, “or else believe for the sake of the works themselves.” In other words, “When I brought salvation, it was the Father working through me. When the lame walked and the blind could see and the deaf could hear—that was God.” Every time we see someone approaching Jesus and asking to be healed, what does He say? “I will.” With crowds around Him, He says, “I will. I will.” This is the heart of our Father. Read the four gospels; everything Jesus did was under the anointing of God and the Holy Spirit. He acted on their behalf on the earth just as we should act on their behalf today.

Jesus wept a couple of times in scripture. In Luke 19:41-44, He is weeping over the city and a group of people who rejected His sacrifice, and He says, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

Jesus is hurt over the rejection of the power, grace and mercy that is accomplished in God. He’s hurt because He sees the benefit missed and because He sees what’s coming ahead for those who reject the word of God. He’s hurt because of love for children that are lost. Here, He is saying, “How often I would have helped you and brought you peace, but you rejected me.” This is God. He wants a relationship with you—and He rejoices over blessing you.