What does God think about pleasure? How would you answer that?

How would your friends or co-workers answer?

I think many would tell us God is anti-pleasure. They might say God is mainly interested in having us follow His rules…rules that are meant to prohibit any sort of pleasure or fun.

And that’s a tragedy, because it’s not the God revealed in the Bible.

Check out this passage written by King David in Psalm 36…

Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord, preserve both people and animals. How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.

After describing God’s faithfulness, righteousness, justice, love and protection, David says, “They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights.”

The Hebrew word used to describe feasting on God’s abundance means “to be satiated or saturated, to be drunk or intoxicated.”  And the Hebrew word for “delights” is the root word for Eden, as in the Garden of Eden, and it means “pleasure.”

So think about it…Adam and Eve were created to live in the “Garden of Pleasure.” And David describes God’s people drinking from His river of pleasure and feasting at His house to the point of intoxication.

My five senses tell me that you and I were wired to experience pleasure in a material world, but if that’s all we believe there is, then we’ve missed it all. God created us to live in friendship with Him. Physical pleasures are a gift from Him, not something to be sought apart from Him.

In fact, when we make pleasure our primary pursuit, pleasure is no longer something to be enjoyed, but an idol that must be served. The pursuit of pleasure apart from an intimate relationship with God leaves us feeling unsatisfied and empty. It leads to addictions as we try more and more to find something to fulfill us. What may have started out as pleasure becomes a prison.

God isn’t anti-pleasure. He’s not anti-sex. God isn’t out to kill a good time. True pleasure and true freedom aren’t found apart from God, they’re found in Him. And God’s commands regarding earthly pleasures aren’t meant to rob us of pleasure, but to provide for us and protect us from harm.

Pleasure is God’s creation, not man’s. If you want to experience maximum pleasure, then make 2014 a year of seeking God and walking according to His ways. The Author of Life knows what He’s doing. Seek Him. Trust Him. Feast and drink deeply.

In the last chapter of the Bible, the apostle John wrote, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb…”

The river of life, the river of delights flows from God Himself…and He invites you to drink all you want.