Month: May 2010 (Page 3 of 3)

Devotions from Gary Thomas’ book Pure Pleasure

There is no doubt how important praying, serving, giving, meditating etc is. But they are not the only pleasures, for God accepts more than “religious activities”.  We must give ourselves permission to sip a cup of coffee, watch a football game without feeling as if God has to excuse himself from the room. We need to build our life by making room for healthy pleasures that lift our soul in the midst of our most difficult days. We can put our family, our health, our ministry in jeopardy by living as though we can’t go 24-7 without a break. Let us think about what gives us lasting pleasure. What leaves us refreshed, renewed and revitalized?  I think we would find it different for all of us. Some enjoy pleasure in touching like a hot-oil massage.  Some find it from hearing like listening to our favorite group on a fabulous sound system.  Or some people get pleasure from tasting- like enjoying a gourmet meal.  Others derive pleasure from looking at a breath-taking scene. Many find great pleasure in creating things like painting a scene of beauty. Others may relish mental stimulation like word puzzles. Many find pleasure in connecting with others and relating in deep ways.  How about just sharing laughter with a friend?   Let us do what inspires us to the point that it inflates our soul and makes us long to be faithful and obedient..

Devotions based on the book Pure Pleasure by Gary Thomas

“Contempt for pleasure, so far from arguing superior spirituality, is actually ….the sin of pride. Pleasure divinely designed to raise our sense of God’s goodness, deepen our gratitude to Him, and strengthens our hope of richer pleasures to come in the next world. “ J. I. Packer.
In Ps. 37:4 we are told to delight in the Lord for He will give us the desires of our heart.
Sometimes when we feel tired and burned out and depressed we may think we need to fast, pray and fast some more. But sometimes the answer is practical and we may need a nap or just go have fun.  We may need to become more intentional in our life to enjoy the God-given pleasures, which can cause us to become more energized, more generous with our time, more patient etc.  When we get stuck the answer may not be more discipline but a Sabbath refreshment!

One way of fighting sin is to build into our lives holy pleasure…like getting together with close friends, having a round of golf, reading a novel etc. We need to feel free to pursue and cultivate and enjoy soul-filling pleasures that will leave us so full that we won’t have much time to dwell on the negative or illicit. But if we feel we must  always sacrifice our own pleasure and never take time for ourselves, our body will suffer the consequences of stress.  And when we don’t get refreshed, others around us will suffer as well!
Today let each of us take time for a pleasure that will fortify our soul, expand our spirit, and enlarge our hearts.

Devotions from Gary Thomas’ book Pure Pleasure

Dr. Houston said “For Christians who live closely with God, life is like a festival.”
In fact if we live in a spirit of gloom it denies the effectiveness of Jesus sacrifice on the cross. He set us free and our freedom needs to be realized and celebrated.

IF God’s people can’t play and celebrate, then who can?  To call God anti-pleasure is to dishonor Him who created pleasure and who promises pleasures for evermore.

Of course we need to set boundaries so we don’t fall captive to the enemy. But also we must remember that because something is wrong in excess doesn’t mean it is unhealthy in moderation.

Heaven is a place of extravagance and the most important part of heaven will be living in the presence of God…But His presence will also set us free to truly enjoy all that He has made for our benefit. Can you even imagine the feasting, the rejoicing, dancing, singing, laughing and playing? 
“When we embrace pleasure we stand on God’s ground.  He uses pleasure to motivate us and to bless us.”  …..chances are it will lead to worship!

Devotions from Gary Thomas’  Pure Pleasure

Do we really know what it means to live in the love of God and to believe He delights in us?

Julian of Norwich said,” He makes us love all that He loves, for His love’s sake, and makes us take pleasure in Him and all His works.

God isn’t just our Redeemer, he is also our creator and brilliant designer. “He made us, and He made the world. So when we participate in this world as he made it, we celebrate Him every bit as much as we honor Him when we do things that reflect His redeeming work.  In fact, we insult Him when we deny the glory of God in His creativity.” He is more than our Savior and rescuer for He invites us to enjoy Him and all that He has made.  He wants us to use the world to enjoy Him for it points to Him.  That means we can enjoy prayer and worship etc but we can also enjoy traveling, reading for pleasure, laughter, exercise etc. When we are “redeemed by Jesus, we are finally set free to truly enjoy and participate in the things of this world without becoming sinfully entangled by them.” In a literal sense, every aspect of our lives that we find satisfying ultimately has its roots in God’s goodness. But if we use pleasures contrary to God’s design then it can become an idolatry. 
So may we let God’s blessings and pleasures remind us of God rather than to dull us to His presence. Under His rule, this created world becomes a lovely place of worship, delight, and spiritual wonder.

Devotions from Gary Thomas’s book, Pure Pleasure

God delights in our delight!  In Isaiah 62:4-5 it says “The Lord will take delight in you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”
Enjoying God and what He has created (in the way He intends us to enjoy it) brings pleasure to God.  If you are a parent, you can picture your joy as you watch the delight of your children tearing into their presents on Christmas morning. 

Our Father also takes pleasure in our joy.

If we live only out of duty it robs our heavenly Father of great pleasure. But when we connect our pleasure with God it builds our souls and strengthens us.  Pleasure divorced from God leads to pain and misery.

. “A vital relationship with God colors our pleasures with a holy passion and leads us to value relationship over the spirit of possession, intimacy over ambition, and service over selfishness. God sets us free to revel in what He has designed for our enjoyment and eventually, as we mature, we begin to detest what goes against His nature and will.”

So we don’t need to fear pleasure but fear separation from God that will corrupt our sense of pleasure and make the pleasure drive dangerous.

 As we pursue God we will find pleasure is a by-product of life lived in surrender.  Let us continue to journey with Him so that our hearts can be gradually shaped to look for the deeper side of pleasures.

Devotions from Pure Pleasure by Gary Thomas

 Jesus said “I came so that they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” ( The message translation)

“The good things of this earth, created by God to be received with thanksgiving and praise- things such as friendship, good food and fine drinks, laughter, sex, and family life- can be redeemed to season our life and faith in many positive ways.”  We all have need for spiritual disciplines, self-denial, detachment etc but we also need to embrace pleasure as a way to celebrate God and the life He has given us.  It becomes a spiritual sickness when we denounce pleasure simply because it feels pleasurable. As Christians Satan can trap us with our compulsions in which we take pride for working so hard and seeing enjoyment as weakness or “giving in”  Sometimes the most spiritual thing to do when you are tired is to take a  nap rather than push on and on. We don’t honor Him when we deny ourselves everything He created to bring us pleasure. Julian of Norwich tells us to let God win us over with His joy, pleasure, and friendship, and then we will be that much less vulnerable to being fooled by the counterfeit pleasure of sin. 
We must not lose our zeal for outreach to poor etc but in the same way, for the sake of honoring God, we shouldn’t neglect celebrating His goodness and faithfulness. Let us remember as we go about our day today that our pleasure brings pleasure to God

Devotions from Gary Thomas’s book, Pure Pleasure

Maybe when you read the title of Thomas’ book, you thought of sin, like- “If it feels good it must be sin!”

But God wants to bless us with so many pleasures and gifts from His hand that delight us –  and in delighting us brings pleasure back to Him.  We need to receive these gifts and allow God to use them to ruin us to the ways of the world.  We can learn to fill our souls with prayer and fellowship but also beauty, art, noble achievement, fine meals, rich relationships, laughter etc.  When we deny ourselves God’s good pleasures we end up becoming vulnerable to illicit pleasures.  We must not set up our lives for just duty, responsibility and obligation, with little true pleasure to season our day. That will only make us thirsty and desperate for illicit pleasures.

God has designed us for healthy pleasures to sustain us. He delights to see us live in pleasure, just as any of us as parents love to watch our children squeal with delight on Christmas morning. 

It’s true that “God created us for His own pleasure, not our own; but when we live a life of holy pleasure, we do bring pleasure to God.”   Let us go on to enjoy God and believe there is a holy purpose behind the intentional cultivation of appropriate pleasures!

Devotions from Mother Teresa/No Greater Love

The work God calls each of us to do is a means to put our love for God into living action.  Our vocation is to belong to Him. If we say Yes to God it means we surrender fully, without reservations and allow only God to make plans for our future. It is to say, “I accept what ever you give, and I give whatever you take.” It doesn’t mean doing extraordinary things but is a simple acceptance because we belong to Him. It involves loving trust. We must be empty if we want God to fill us.  “If God who owes us nothing, is willing to give us nothing less than Himself, can we respond by giving Him only a part of ourselves? “ He wants all of us. He wants us to give ourselves completely to Him and keep His interests in our hearts. That means fighting against our own ego and love of comfort.

We are not here to just to fill a place, just to be a number. He has chosen us for a purpose and we are precious in His sight. May we give Him all!

Devotions based on Mother Teresa/No Greater Love

“The prize with which God rewards our self-abandonment is Himself.”
Suffering will never be completely absent from our lives but we must not be afraid of suffering. Our suffering can be a means of love if we make use of it. Suffering in itself is useless but suffering that is shared with the passion of Christ is a gift and sign of love.  Christ’s suffering proved to be a gift to us, because it is through His suffering that our sins were atoned for. So when we are going through difficulties let us remember that the passion of Christ ends in the joy of the resurrection. Likewise as we suffer it helps to remember that the resurrection has to come, lest we lose our joy.  Even death can be something beautiful for it is like going home.  At the moment of death, we will not be judged by the amount of work we have done, but by the weight of love we have put into our work.  Death is like our coronation: to die in peace with God. He who dies in God goes home!  We come from God and we go back to Him!