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!