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The lie that duty precludes pleasure
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There is no Biblical warrant for a faith characterized by pleasure-less drudgery.
A good pastor-friend of mine, Jeremy Bedenbaugh, recently wrote the following as a devotional for his church. He has a real gift for cutting through all the crap that can cloud the truth of what the Bible has to say about the nature of our faith, and this is an excellent example. Enjoy!
A great lie has been perpetrated about God, Jesus, and Christianity for some time now. It has gained credence nationwide and is even widely accepted now in most Christian circles. Here is the lie: When it comes to how you live your life, you must choose between happiness and holiness; you must choose between righteousness and pleasure; you must choose between delight and duty; you must choose between following Jesus and enjoying life. The world outside the church often views God as the big party-pooper in the sky, ready to crush fun with a single command, while the people inside the church often view him as the big ogre in the sky, ready to cast down lightening bolts for our slightest missteps. Just a cursory glance at the verses above yields a vision of faith and the God of faith that is far superior to the drudgery and duty of the religion I grew up with (maybe many of you too). We’ve somehow inherited a view of Christianity that says that if we take any joy in doing the right thing, then we have spoiled the good of our actions, but this is patently unchristian, because God, who created our desires, continually appeals to them in the Scriptures. But didn’t’ Jesus call us to deny ourselves (Matt. 16.24-26)? Yes, but note the way this denial works from the oft-quoted passage from C.S. Lewis:
The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (Weight of Glory)
You see, a Christian view of self-denial is not one of drudgery but one of denying yourself the lesser pleasure for the greater. Jesus Himself poses it this way -If you lose your life, you will find it! Listen to how he appeals to us with His question: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” In other words, even if you have to deny yourself the whole world right now, you are only gaining because you will keep your soul for eternity (Matthew 16:26, Luke 9:25).
Doesn’t seeking your own happiness sound self-centered? Aren't Christians supposed to seek God, not their own pleasure? “To answer this question,” according to John Piper, “we need to understand a crucial truth about pleasure-seeking: we value most what we delight in most. Pleasure is not God's competitor, idols are. Pleasure is simply a gauge that measures how valuable someone or something is to us. Pleasure is the measure of our treasure.” (What is Christian Hedonism?)
As an illustration of this, suppose you have a daughter and a man comes to ask for her hand in marriage. Suppose he tells you that your daughter is the prize of his life, his treasure, that his joy is only complete in her joy, that though he might lose everything else in the world, if he still has her it will be sufficient, that her very presence is satisfying and in her he finds the greatest heights of pleasure and delight. Would you think that his pleasure in her disqualifies him from marrying her or somehow makes him selfish? Of course not. What we recognize very quickly in this illustration is that there is a way to pursue your joy in someone that honors that person and a way to pursue your joy in someone that dishonors the person. We want to pursue our joy in God in a way that honors Him by showing forth His sufficiency and greatness. Therefore, the radically different vision of the Christian life that I would like to commend to you includes a call and a duty from God to seek your pleasure in God. Is God your pleasure and delight? Do you hunger and thirst after Him or simply try to obey Him? Are you asking God for this hunger? Over the next 3 weeks I will try to show just three reasons why this is crucial to your life.
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