What is the delight of God’s heart? Or, to use the language of Ephesians, what is His “good pleasure” (Eph. 1:5, 9)?
Did you know that our God is emotional? A number of times we are told that He was pleased (1 Sam. 12:22; 1 Kings 3:10; Isa. 42:21; Heb. 13:16) or that He was angry (Deut. 1:37; 9:20; 1 Kings 11:9; 2 Kings 17:18). Emotion is a sign of life. A stone does not get angry. If you are living, your face will express emotion, for example, when you come to the meetings.
The Lord Jesus illustrated how emotional the Father is in the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. In fact, it is more accurate to call this the parable of the happy father! The son left his father for the far country, but one day his hunger caused his thoughts to turn homeward, not so much toward his father as toward the riches in the father’s house. “He arose, and came to his father” (v. 20), prepared to say that he was no longer worthy to be called a son. Before he caught sight of his father, however, “when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him.” The father must have been watching for his errant son to return. Verse 20 is the only verse in the Bible that says God ran. He “had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” How emotional! I am sorry to say I have never so embraced any of my three sons. This indicates I am short of life, not like God! Praise God that He is so emotional toward us all!
The father cut short the son’s confession of unworthiness by telling the servants to bring forth the robe, the ring, and the sandals for him to wear. Qualified by these outward things, the son was ready to feast on the fatted calf. The father said, “Let us eat, and be merry” (v. 23). “And they began to be merry” (v. 24). Here is the merriment of God. Because He is full of life, God can be extremely happy or, by the same token, furiously angry.
Our emotions come not only because we have life but also because we are purposeful. If we have no plans, we have no reason to feel joy or anger; we are indifferent about what happens. But if we have a strong purpose, we shall be excited and delighted to see it realized. For the same reason, we shall be angry if its fulfillment is frustrated.
Our God is a God of life and a God of purpose. He “predestinated us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:5). He has “made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself unto a dispensation of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ” (vv. 9-10). We were “predestinated according to the purpose of the One Who operates all things according to the counsel of His will” (v. 11).
From these verses we can see that the good pleasure of God is related to such great matters as His will, His purpose (used here in both the verbal and noun forms), a dispensation (or administration, or economy), and His counsel. All these great matters have God’s good pleasure as their source. It was because of His good pleasure that He had a will. According to that will, He made a plan (or purposed something). For this plan He took counsel with Himself. Then His economy emerged for an administration.
We have no way of knowing when this good pleasure began, but since our God is eternal, without beginning or ending, His good pleasure must also be eternal. It lies at the heart of the origin of the universe.
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