Pleasures Evermore
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rom517mm
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Joined: Fri Feb 1st, 2008
Location: Texas USA
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Mana: 
  Posted: Fri Feb 22nd, 2008 09:30 pm
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This book has helped me realize that pleasure is key to vibrant faith. Pleasure in God, that is. Sam is a strong advocate of John Piper, whose "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him," and his rephrasing of the Westminster Shorter Catechism "The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever are at the essence of what he calls "Christian hedonism," from his book Desiring God. Piper and Storms are both advocates of Jonathan Edwards, who they say was himself a Christian hedonist. I can't stress strongly enough that I don't believe that God wants pleasure to be our god, but He wants us to delight in Him. Of course I need to always obey God even when the pleasure isn't initially there, but ultimately I should long to enjoy God and His will rather than simply obeying out of duty.

I can see how quickly this could turn into a doctrinal debate, and I don't have the theological background to argue the fine points. I would appreciate your thoughts on pleasure as it relates to the Christian life.



____________________
"Since by the one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ." (Rom. 5:17)
Wilderness Voice
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Mana: 
  Posted: Fri Feb 22nd, 2008 10:49 pm
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I do know that we can be in danger of being "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God."

I also know that we can take "pleasure in unrighteousness," and thereby
"receive not the love of the truth."

If we love the pleasures that sin brings we can easily be in a place where we hate to hear the truth.  This leads to the lying and cover-up and avoidance that so often goes along with sexual sin.  We often just hate to hear the truth about ourselves and avoid exposing ourselves at all costs  - but we still love that pleasure that our sinful life brings and run back to it again and again.

The heart can be lead, and can lead our souls, very astray by seeking pleasure from sin.  Hopefully we will listen to and obey the truth before it becomes too late.
If we are fearful to confess our deepest sins to our spouses, to our brethren - oh I can assure you mightily that we would cringe in terror at being exposed in front of the eyes of the Living God.  If we are doing things that we hide from others - we lie to ourselves if we think that it doesn't bother us that God sees - we actually don't believe that He does.  If we did, the shame we feel at being exposed to people would be a thousand-fold at being exposed to the Holy God.These types of pleasures that require sneaking, lies, and justifications - are definitely not Godly pleasures.
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 Sorry, messed up on entry-syntax

 

Last edited on Fri Feb 22nd, 2008 10:58 pm by Wilderness Voice

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