We (followers of Christ) have fixed pleasure and duty as polar opposites.
Somehow the idea of duty, meaning obedience to God, is something that we pursue out of obligation. Obedience to God has come to be known by some professing followers of Christ as a tedious, non-interesting activity.
Somehow the bible has been presented in recent years as a book filled with instructions on how to perform duties. Where it is filled with lists and descriptions of duties and responsibilities of what God wants from his prized creation, it puts us in place to miss that this Bible speaks not only of duty, but it speaks of who God is.
Until we are willing to make reading of the Bible the same standard of our pleasures as we do our instructions of duty we will only see the Bible as something we pick up when we are in trouble.
When is the last time you treated your Bible as an instruction for the pursuit of pleasure? Religion and melancholy are not synonymous terms. Many professing followers of Christ are under the spell that the bible is boring and church is the place where boring is promoted.
We will remain in this wrong thought so long as we think God has nothing to say to us concerning pleasure.
“How blessed is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding. For her profit is better than the profit of silver and her gain better than fin gold. She is more precious than jewels; and nothing you desire compares with her. Long life is in her right hand; in Her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, and happy are all who hold her fast.” (Proverbs 3:13-18)
It appears clearly in Scripture that we are designed by our Creator to pursue pleasure. Reason then should instruct us that if our Creator designed us to pursue pleasure that He would also give us a lamp to instruct us down “pleasant ways” and to trust that on this pursuit is a peaceful path.
The problem is, we are under a spell and don’t appear to want to be released from it. We can’t seem to quit interpreting pleasure by any other standard than by that which wages war against God’s standard.
There is a joy and peace in believing, “a peace that passes all understanding”, a joy unspeakable and full of glory. It is not wrong to enjoy comforts of earth, they are not incompatible with the pursuit of eternal salvation in heaven.
The thing is, we aren’t reading our Bibles properly.
We were created to pleasantly walk with God. But, because of sin, we have been born with an addiction to wicked pleasures that war against how we were created. This is the case with every generation and in every country.
Follower of Christ, stop reading your Bible for information on how to get rich in this temporal world and begin reading it as a revelation of pearl of great pleasure.
Professor of Christ, can you continue to starve your soul from that which God created? Is is reasonable that your current pursuit of sensual pleasure is not accomplishing what your soul is hungering and thirsting for? As long as you are feeding the wicked pleasures of your heart you will only read the Bible as a voice that condemns your practices and find it a book that is always speaking against your activity.
What if, instead, you treat the Word of God as a lamp; a lamp illuminating a path of previously avoided paths that truly leads to pleasure, lasting, eternal pleasure? Or will you be like the one the Apostle Paul describes as lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God?
Do you not know this?
God wants you to be pleased. You too want to be pleased. God has designed you to pursue pleasure. God likes it when we do what we are created to do and he is displeased when we waste this created purpose on temporal, immoral, unpleasant ends.
Follower of Christ, we have a blessed lamp; turn that lamp on.
No Comments