Pure Pleasure

In the book "Pure Pleasure: Why Do Christians Feel So Bad About Feeling Good?" Gary Thomas may have come up with a type of remedy for sin for the Christian, at least most of the sin that we commit. 

He argues that the reason that Christians may go off the path and pursue illicit pleasures is because they do not have enough godly pleasure in their lives.

Godly pleasures that we should fill our life with would be....art, beauty, nature walks, fine meals, rich relationships and good conversation, playing with children, laughter....

He opens the book by saying:

"Some in the church feel suspicious, at best, of pleasure.  We consider pleasure a synonym for sin.  It if feels good, we think, it must be the devil's handmaiden.  So we set up our lives on duty, responsibility and obligation....over time, these lives that are devoid of holy and good pleasure become extremely 'thirsty,' and we begin gravitating toward a release that is not holy or good or honoring to God." 

Another explanation is that we are like the pendulum swinging from license to legalism.  Christians spend most of their time on the legalistic side, but eventually, we all want to have some fun, so we swing to the license side, but then feel bad, get really mad at ourselves for wanting to have some fun and be happy, and put ourselves back in the strait jacket of legalism.  lol.  Sound familiar?

That's the story of my life right there, in a nut shell. 

So what is the solution?  All my life I have wondered what the solution is to how difficult the Christian life can be, especially in America, where we not have many good examples of being Christian while also having fun. 

Thomas says, "For years the church has tried to scare us out of our sin."  But is this working?  No.  Look at the Catholic Church for example.  Very serious, very legalistic, and how many times have the priests been caught molesting young boys or committing other scandalous behavior?

Could this be because legalism will actually cause one to sin more?

What did you feel growing up when your parents wanted to control you?  The more they wanted the control you, the more you wanted to rebel right? 

Well it is the same with God and the church. 

Many people are angry at God, but who they really should be angry at is the church.  God is the perfect parents for his children.  He wants us to be happy and enjoy ourselves.  The Bible says, "Taste and see that the Lord is GOOD."  Also, "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice!"

The problem is, like the Pharisees in Jesus' day, the church today has set up many rules in addition to what scripture states should be off limits. 

This is what made Jesus so angry at the church in his day.  He said to the Pharisees, the church leaders of that day, in Mt. 15:

"You nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

8 “‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules."

Likewise today we have set up many "rules" that are not actually in the Bible; no dancing, no drinking, no smoking, no playing cards (in some churches), and the list goes on.

Thomas says, "We need to preach the glory of a truly soul-satisfying life instead of sounding obsessed about the dangers of a life lived foolishly."

Amen!  Was the gospel not meant to be the "good news?"  Why then have we, as the church, turned it into the bad news? lol

Instead of saying, "Jesus can save you and he LOVES YOU!"  We instead say, "Dude, you're going to hell, you know that right?" or “You really should get your act together before coming to church.”

Which would you rather hear? 

It is God's KINDNESS that leads us to repentance.  The judgementalism of the church merely rappels people even further from God. 

We are to be God's dispensers of grace. 

So common church! Let's start being nicer :)  And let’s actually make the gospel attractive and the good news that it was intended to be.  Amen?  Amen! J 

Grace and peace be with you! J