20150125
Pleasure is the feeling of happiness or satisfaction one gets from an activity or experience. In the search for a more meaningful life, most people tend to adopt an “eat, drink and be merry attitude” as they seek temporary happiness in living “under the sun”. However, not all pleasure is wrong. There is great happiness and satisfaction derived from activities like celebrating the joy of birthdays, falling in love and getting married, the birth of a baby, raising a family, a job promotion, an act of kindness to another, good food and drinks (yum, yum), fellowship with family and friends and many more. But you have to be careful seeking pleasure through questionable social activities. Excessive drinking of alcohol for pleasure will end up in you becoming an alcoholic. With illegal hard drugs taken for pleasure (high feeling) is bad. You will fall into drug addiction (plus prison time when caught). This drug addiction is a lifetime curse. Ask any ex-drug addict and he will tell you the horror stories! Tobacco addiction is just as bad.
King Solomon carried it to extremes in his search for pleasure. He built great pet projects such as houses, gardens and reservoirs for his subjects and amassed treasures for himself. He had 700 wives and kept a harem of 300 concubines to satisfy his personal desires (1 Kings 11:3 and Ecclesiastes. 2: 4-9). Are all these activities and experiences wrong? Sadly the pleasures you get from all these experience cannot bring eternal satisfaction. “Everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun“. The more you get, the more you want – this cycle goes on and on.
Today, many pleasures can be procured with money but they will lead you into another trap. Beware the trap of the love of money (1 Timothy 6:10). “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24). Once trapped in the habit to acquire it – “Money no enough”! Don’t confuse the love of money to the need for it for living. They are two completely different matters. Ask God to guide you in this matter of earthly pleasures. Be content for “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). Seek God’s will and perspective in everything you do. Pleasure that you enjoy on this earth will then become one of God’s blessings to you as you live your life in serving others and to the glory of God.
