Proverbs 21:17
The lover of pleasure will be a poor man: the lover of wine and oil will not get wealth.
Have you ever been out and about and felt hungry but you didn't know what you wanted to eat? I absolutely hate when this happens! I believe it's the worst kind of hunger; the undefined hunger. It's because you're typically inundated with so many options that it's a possibility you will overindulge just to satiate this raging palate.
This is exactly what happened to me yesterday and the day before. Monday, I found myself in a restaurant, paralyzed with indecision staring at the menu. I had three choices, choose something I hadn't eaten in a while, choose a favorite, or choose a sampler because it came with a little bit of everything. I wound up ordering the thing I hadn't tasted in a while and was sorely disappointed. To be honest the meal really left much to be desired. So yesterday, I told myself I would make up for that disappointment which left me with too much of what I really didn't want in the first place.
And now I'm here, confronted by the principles of pleasure. Can anybody see a comparison between my two day saga of hunger and the way people actually choose to operate in their lives? They make choices either based off of past familiar experiences, current preferences, or pick from multiple places all in an effort to maintain the principles of pleasure to produce the most self-gratifying outcome.
The late Sigmund Freud set it out this way, the pleasure principle simply put, suggests that the mind will seek pleasure over pain and that seeking pleasure is the ultimate driving force behind human behavior. Moreover, this ideology points out that our most primitive and intrinsic urges i.e. hunger, thirst, anger, sex, are strived towards by the pleasure principle and if not met, tension and anxiety follows.
Now doesn't this sound like the traits and attributes of our flesh??????
Come on! Can't you see?
At any point in your life, if you are being led and motivated by the pleasure principle with the excuse that it's innate and thus excused because you're human, you are making concessions for your flesh. Furthermore, you are setting yourself up for a life of lack and limited favor. Just refer back to the scripture above. Point me to a believer who claims to be blood washed and blood bought but is currently broke and squeezing pennies together to make an offering to God, and I will point you to somewhere in their life where they have given in to a human pleasure! May not be the case for all but for a nice cluster it will be, if there's a flesh heavy reliance on the avoidance of pain or discomfort! Fulfilled freshly pleasures will result in unfulfilled kingdom mandates that accompanies earthly accoutrements. Kingdom mandates require the use of a high dosage of time that fleshly pleasures WILL eat up!
As a believer, once you gave God your life making Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior you gave up all rights of your flesh including your human appetites. God can not be Lord completely over your life if you still want to give whim to your human pleasures. What's the point of making all of these huge requests and confessions that you want to be used by God without the belief that you need to give Him your appetite for fleshly satisfactions? Huh? Don't let the world send you off and seduce you into believing the complete opposite. The world is a clogged toilet waiting to be plunged! You will not take your keynotes and motivators from it!
A few nights ago, I was laying in bed. I couldn't sleep as I was restless. Then I begin to think about how I have absolutely no desire to be touched by another man who will not be my husband. 5 years and some change into my season of singlehood and abstinence having not had any romantic affiliations with the opposite sex whatsoever, I had to clutch my pearls when I realized I barely have any urges to do anything at all. When they do come, they're subtle and somehow I'm able to sedate them quickly without even knowing it, which actually prompted me on this night to ask God if the Netherlands was still a fully functioning community. Haha!
Needless to say, He went on to answer me with the explanation that this is a normal side effect of replacing human with Holy Spirit; urges if not strangled, are subdued and muted. In Galatians 5, Paul mentions that one of the fruits of the spirit is SELF-CONTROL! I've observed people and have had many conversations with others who's lives are reflections of their love of pleasure and these cat and mouse pursuits to be physically and emotionally satiated. These same people refuse to believe that the pleasure principle is alive and active in their members and thus is the conduit of their toxic cycles and unnecessary heartbreaks.
When I was in the world, mines was much more deep rooted than this. I found pleasure in pleasing others. In other words, I was a notorious people pleaser. So then this thing carried itself over into my salvation walk as well. I can't even tell you how many times I was gutted like a fish because of this. I eventually had to be re-gutted and rehabbed by God through an actual ongoing process of deliverance. Hear this though, you're probably reading this and can admit that lately God has been dealing with your appetite. Things are starting not to taste the same, feel the same, look the same, or behave the same.
It's because something as minute as the desire to feel fleshly pleasure and to be filled with fleshly pleasure, has built a wedge between you and God so He has to check it. These kind of wedges block all kinds of opportunities, favor, advancement, promotion, elevation etc. Why? Because God can not promote you to any level in the kingdom where He can not trust you to demote your flesh in any area of your life!
Fleshly pleasure is like a drug. You're going to have to keep doing what you're doing to maintain it, I don't care what it is. It's the same symptom across the board. Giving it up will be hard. But after awhile self-denial will be second nature once you realize what you're being protected and shielded from. Some people have walked into death traps because they couldn't control their appetites. Take this as a warning. Let this not be you, beloved.
This is exactly what happened to me yesterday and the day before. Monday, I found myself in a restaurant, paralyzed with indecision staring at the menu. I had three choices, choose something I hadn't eaten in a while, choose a favorite, or choose a sampler because it came with a little bit of everything. I wound up ordering the thing I hadn't tasted in a while and was sorely disappointed. To be honest the meal really left much to be desired. So yesterday, I told myself I would make up for that disappointment which left me with too much of what I really didn't want in the first place.
And now I'm here, confronted by the principles of pleasure. Can anybody see a comparison between my two day saga of hunger and the way people actually choose to operate in their lives? They make choices either based off of past familiar experiences, current preferences, or pick from multiple places all in an effort to maintain the principles of pleasure to produce the most self-gratifying outcome.
The late Sigmund Freud set it out this way, the pleasure principle simply put, suggests that the mind will seek pleasure over pain and that seeking pleasure is the ultimate driving force behind human behavior. Moreover, this ideology points out that our most primitive and intrinsic urges i.e. hunger, thirst, anger, sex, are strived towards by the pleasure principle and if not met, tension and anxiety follows.
Now doesn't this sound like the traits and attributes of our flesh??????
Come on! Can't you see?
At any point in your life, if you are being led and motivated by the pleasure principle with the excuse that it's innate and thus excused because you're human, you are making concessions for your flesh. Furthermore, you are setting yourself up for a life of lack and limited favor. Just refer back to the scripture above. Point me to a believer who claims to be blood washed and blood bought but is currently broke and squeezing pennies together to make an offering to God, and I will point you to somewhere in their life where they have given in to a human pleasure! May not be the case for all but for a nice cluster it will be, if there's a flesh heavy reliance on the avoidance of pain or discomfort! Fulfilled freshly pleasures will result in unfulfilled kingdom mandates that accompanies earthly accoutrements. Kingdom mandates require the use of a high dosage of time that fleshly pleasures WILL eat up!
As a believer, once you gave God your life making Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior you gave up all rights of your flesh including your human appetites. God can not be Lord completely over your life if you still want to give whim to your human pleasures. What's the point of making all of these huge requests and confessions that you want to be used by God without the belief that you need to give Him your appetite for fleshly satisfactions? Huh? Don't let the world send you off and seduce you into believing the complete opposite. The world is a clogged toilet waiting to be plunged! You will not take your keynotes and motivators from it!
A few nights ago, I was laying in bed. I couldn't sleep as I was restless. Then I begin to think about how I have absolutely no desire to be touched by another man who will not be my husband. 5 years and some change into my season of singlehood and abstinence having not had any romantic affiliations with the opposite sex whatsoever, I had to clutch my pearls when I realized I barely have any urges to do anything at all. When they do come, they're subtle and somehow I'm able to sedate them quickly without even knowing it, which actually prompted me on this night to ask God if the Netherlands was still a fully functioning community. Haha!
Needless to say, He went on to answer me with the explanation that this is a normal side effect of replacing human with Holy Spirit; urges if not strangled, are subdued and muted. In Galatians 5, Paul mentions that one of the fruits of the spirit is SELF-CONTROL! I've observed people and have had many conversations with others who's lives are reflections of their love of pleasure and these cat and mouse pursuits to be physically and emotionally satiated. These same people refuse to believe that the pleasure principle is alive and active in their members and thus is the conduit of their toxic cycles and unnecessary heartbreaks.
When I was in the world, mines was much more deep rooted than this. I found pleasure in pleasing others. In other words, I was a notorious people pleaser. So then this thing carried itself over into my salvation walk as well. I can't even tell you how many times I was gutted like a fish because of this. I eventually had to be re-gutted and rehabbed by God through an actual ongoing process of deliverance. Hear this though, you're probably reading this and can admit that lately God has been dealing with your appetite. Things are starting not to taste the same, feel the same, look the same, or behave the same.
It's because something as minute as the desire to feel fleshly pleasure and to be filled with fleshly pleasure, has built a wedge between you and God so He has to check it. These kind of wedges block all kinds of opportunities, favor, advancement, promotion, elevation etc. Why? Because God can not promote you to any level in the kingdom where He can not trust you to demote your flesh in any area of your life!
Fleshly pleasure is like a drug. You're going to have to keep doing what you're doing to maintain it, I don't care what it is. It's the same symptom across the board. Giving it up will be hard. But after awhile self-denial will be second nature once you realize what you're being protected and shielded from. Some people have walked into death traps because they couldn't control their appetites. Take this as a warning. Let this not be you, beloved.
G.I.N.O
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