The Correct Context of Pleasure

“This is the great lost truth of the Christian faith, that correction of Judaism made by Jesus and passed on to us: the goal of morality is not morality—it is ecstasy. You are intended for pleasure!” ~ John Eldredge; The Journey of Desire

One of the great lies that people have believed from the beginning is that true pleasure is found outside the boundaries of morality. Too often we believe that pleasure is found by breaking the rules and living for the moment.

The morality God has given us in the Bible and in our conscience, seems to stand in the way of our having a good time. The party mentality isn’t just something new invented by students on college campuses, but it had gone back thousands of years. So many people have given their lives away to the party in an attempt to live the “good life”.

Too many people in our culture morality is seen as God’s attempt to keep us from having a good time. Morality tells us not to get drunk or high. Morality tells us that sex should be between a man and a woman, and then only within the bounds of marriage. Morality says to be a servant to other people, even though it will mean the sacrifice of both your time and money. Morality seems dull compared to the party.

How we can experience pleasure by doing the right thing?

Ravi Zacharias talks about this issue in his book Cries of the Heart. He wrote; “For true pleasure the price is paid before it is enjoyed. For false pleasure the price is paid after it is enjoyed” (p. 142).

There is no doubt that illicit sex and pornography bring pleasure to people. After all if there was no pleasure then people wouldn’t participate in them. The high of drugs, which include alcohol, gives people pleasure, which is one reason people continue to use them even in the face of negative consequences. These are temporary pleasures that end up enslaving us. God created us to experience pleasures to add joy to our lives, not to enslave us. (Tweet this)

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Prayer: Married Bedtime Prayer

My wife Jenny and I have been using the Bedtime Prayer that John Eldredge wrote for Walking with God as part of our bedtime routine.  As much as I have enjoyed the prayer I thought it was time for a prayer that was better suited to pray together.  Hopefully this will encourage you to implement prayer into your bedtime routine.

Our Father in Heaven, we pause at the end of this day to say thank You.  We give You thanks for the blessing of life, for the blessing of each other, for the blessing of family, and for the blessing of a home. You have richly blessed our lives. 

Restore us Father to Your Son Jesus.  He is the vine and we are the branches and He has become our source of life.  Open our hearts to receive the Holy Spirit's guidance, healing, and transformation.  May our lives and our marriage bear the fruit of the Spirit.  We surrender our lives and our marriage to You.  You have our bodies, possessions, and spirits; we give You our hearts, souls, minds, and strength.  We belong to You. 

Lord God, sanctify our house and make it a home.  We ask that Your Kingdom will come into our home so that this house will become a refuge from the world; filled with love, peace, joy, and hope for all who enter.  Give us the wisdom to be good stewards of what You have blessed us with, and help us use these wonderful blessings to build Your Kingdom. 

Blessed Father, if there are any issues that build up walls of separation between us, make us aware of them. Our desire is to handle these issues and to surrender them to You so we can prevent Satan from having a stronghold in our hearts and in our marriage.  Give us the courage to make the first move, to receive each other in love, to be forgiving, to be patient, to be kind, and to be committed to each other regardless of the issue.  Move us to prayer for each other, to support each other, and to encourage each other every day. 

We ask for a shield of protection this night as we sleep.  Send Your angels to war on our behalf and to keep evil from entering our home.  Fill our minds and imaginations with sweet dreams and help us to fall into a deep and restful sleep, secure in the knowledge that You are watching over us. 

Thank You Father for Your grace, love, and forgiveness.  Into Your hands we place our marriage and our lives.  Guide us to the place You want us to be.  It is in the powerful name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, that we pray, amen.

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Paul's Simple Prayer for Married Couples.
The Bedtime Prayer revised: Bedtime Prayer for Married Couples 2.0.

Daily Thought: Marriage Was God's Idea

Marriage was his idea, after all. God created marriage, and put the desire in our hearts. However else it is you think you came together, what other forces you think were at work, the hopeful truth is that marriage is something God cares deeply about—including your marriage.  When through the prophet Malachi the Lord God of Israel says, “I hate divorce,” we hear it with a shudder. But it ought to be with a surge of hope—the passion conveyed in those three words reveals how deeply he loves marriage, how strong his vested interests are in its success.

Eldredge, John; Eldredge, Stasi (2009-12-09). Love and War: Finding the Marriage You've Dreamed Of (pp. 17-18). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Daily Thought: The Invitation to Desire

This may come as a surprise to you: Christianity is not an invitation to become a moral person.  It is not a program for getting us in line or for reforming society.  It has a powerful effect upon our lives, but when transformation comes, it is alway the aftereffect of something else, something at the level of our hearts.  At its core, Christianity begins with an invitation to desire.

John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire, Thomas Nelson Publishers (2000), p. 34

Daily Thought: You have a Good Heart

The Resurrection affirms the promise Christ made.  For it was life he offered to give us: "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10).  We are saved by his life when we find that we are able to live the way we've always known we should live.  We are free to be what he meant when he meant us.  You have a new life—the life of Christ.  And you have a new heart.  Do you know what this means?  Your heart is good.

John Eldredge, Waking the Dead, Thomas Nelson Publishers (2003), p. 67

Daily Thought: Restoring Your Glory

"That's it exactly.  We are under a spell.  We are alert and oriented times zero.  We have no idea who we really are.  Whatever glory was bestowed, whatever glory is being restored, we thought this whole Christian thing was about...something else.  Trying not to sin.  Going to church. Being nice.  Jesus says it is about healing your heart, setting it free, restoring your glory." ~ John Eldredge, Waking the Dead, p. 80

Daily Thought: We Need God Desperately

"If you're not pursuing a dangerous quest with your life, well, then, you don't need a Guide.  If you haven't found yourself in the midst of a ferocious war, then you won't need a seasoned Captain.  If you've settled in your mind to live as though this is a fairly neutral world and you are simply trying to live your life as best you can, then you can probably get by with the Christianity of tips and techniques.  Maybe.  I'll give you about a fifty-fifty chance.  But if you intend to live in the Story that God is telling, and if you want the life he offers then you are going to need more than a handful of principles, however noble they may be.  THere are too many twists and turns in the road ahead, too many ambushes waiting only God know where, too much at stake.  You cannot possibly prepare yourself for every situation.  Narrow is the way, said Jesus.  How shall we be sure to find it?  We need God intimately, and we need him desperately." ~ John Eldredge, Waking the Dead, p.95

Daily Thought: It is Something to be Learned

"If you want to make music, you have to learn how to play an instrument.  And in the beginning, it doesn't sound too good—all the squawks and squeaks and bad timing.  You really are on your way to making music.  It just sounds like you're strangling a pig.  If you stick with it, something beautiful begins to emerge.  Or how about snowboarding—learning to do that is really awkward at first.  You fall down a lot.  You feel like an idiot.  But if you hang in there, you come to enjoy it.  You get better.  It starts to feel natural.  That's  when it becomes fun.  This hold true for anything in life.

"Including our walk with God.  It takes time and practice.  It's awkward at first, and sometimes we feel stupid.  But if we hang in there, we do begin to get it, and as it becomes more and more natural, our lives are filled with his presence and all the joy and beauty and pleasure that come with it.

"It is something to be learned.

"And it is worth learning." ~ John Eldredge, Walking with God, p. 17

Daily Thought: Two Ploys of the Enemy

"The evil one has basically two ploys.  If he cannot get us to kill our hearts and bury our desire, then he is delighted to seduce our desire into a trap.  Once we give our desire for life to any object other than God, we become ensnared.  Think of the phrase, 'She's a slave to fashion.' We become slaves to any number of things, which at the outset we thought would serve us." ~ John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire, p. 84

Daily Thought: Mutually Opposed Desires

“I want two things that are mutually opposed—I want to live a nice little life, and I want to play an important role in God’s kingdom.  And it’s in those times that I am trying to live a nice little life that I make decisions and choices that cause me in small and subtle ways to live outside of Jesus.  The Shepherd is headed one direction, and I am headed another.  Not to some flagrant sin—that’s too easy to recognize.  Instead, I’m simply wandering off looking for the pasture I deem best.” ~ John Eldredge, Walking with God, pp. 89-90

Daily Thought: You have a Glory

"You are not what you think you are.  There is a glory to your life that your Enemy fears, and he is hell-bent on destroying that glory before you act on it." ~ John Eldredge, Waking the Dead, p. 33

Daily Thought: The Bible and the Spirit

"The Bible is not a magic book.  It doesn't reveal its treasures simply because you read a passage.  It doesn't make you holy simply because you hold it in high esteem.  Many cults use the Bible.  Even Satan quotes Scripture (see Luke 4:9-12).  We need the Bible and all it has to say to us. Desperately.  We also need the Spirit of God to guide us in our reading and study.  'All this I have spoken while still with you,' Jesus said, as he was preparing his followers for life after his departure. 'But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you' (John 14:25-26).

"We need God to help us understand his Word.  We can't separate a walk with God from our reading of Scripture.  The two go hand in hand." ~ John Eldredge, Walking with God, p. 42

Daily Thought: The Healing of Desire

"Christianity recognizes that we have desire gone mad within us. But it does not seek to rectify the problem by killing desire; rather, it seeks the healing of desire, just as it seeks the healing of every other part of our human being." ~ John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire, p. 46

Daily Thought: New Orders

"The Kingdom of God is advancing into the kingdom of darkness, a campaign to ransom people and the earth God intended us to rule. For the Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost. All that was lost. If Christianity seems to you to be having rather less than a remarkable impact on the earth, it is because too many Christians have this idea that we are in a waiting game, that we are basically killing time until Jesus comes back and we all get to go to heaven. We are sitting around like people waiting to catch a flight. That is not what Jesus told us to do; he didn’t say, 'Now hold tight in those pews and twiddle your holy thumbs, I’ll be back soon as I can.' He said, 'As the Father has sent me, I send you' (John 20:21). Let that sink in for a moment. New orders have been given." ~ John and Stasi Eldredge, Love and War, Kindle Edition

Daily Thought: In Need of Validation

"A man's need for validation is one of his most desperate longings.  Until we have that validation, we live with an uncertainty down deep inside.  As men, we need to know who we truly are, and what we are destined to become.  And the only really reliable source for that is the God who made us.  So we need to hear from God what he thinks of us." ~ John Eldredge, The Way of the Wild Heart, p. 128

Daily Thought: We Need Passion

"We cannot hope to live like him [Jesus] without a similar depth of passion.  Many people find that the dilemma of desire is too much to live with, and so they abandon, they disown their desire.  This is certainly true of a majority of Christians at present.  Somehow we believe that we can get on without it. We are mistaken." ~ John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire, p. 55

Daily Thought: What s Its Function?

"Don't be fooled by the apparent innocence of the object you've chosen.  What is its function? Most of our idols also have a perfectly legitimate place in our lives.  That's their cover.  That's how we get away with our infidelity." ~ John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire, p. 80

Daily Thought: Test the Fruit

"You shall know them, Jesus said, by their fruit.

"The principle holds true for anything in life.  It is especially helpful in diagnosing what the enemy might be up to.  What is the fruit of what you're experiencing?  What is its effect? If it continues, what will the results of that be? What will be lost?  Jesus said he came that we might have life and have it abundantly.  He also warned that the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.  Is something being stolen?  That's not from God.  He called Satan the accuser of the brethren.  Are you under accusation, that feeling of 'I'm such an idiot'? (I'm using polite language here.) Look at the fruit—it will give you a good idea of the tree it came from." ~ John Eldredge, Walking with God, p. 51