Point of View: It is 5am, Sunday morning, and all my sleep is gone! I have had such a long debt with God where I’ve felt Him call me to the inner chamber, alone, but I have always been distracted, or put Him off.
During the Men Gather Conference, a statement was said in retaliation of a question asked … which was ‘How can a man overcome addiction?’
Apostle Grace Lubega said, (and I paraphrase) “Pleasures will always outweigh pains. If a man is addicted to alcohol and he is warned that if he takes anymore he’ll soon die . . . the following day, he would. This is because no amount of pain could threaten him enough to give up his bottle. But, that man could give up that habit, if only they found a higher pleasure.”
We all know that pleasures are persons, things, or actions that cause enjoyment. Such things could be sex, pornography, masturbation, soccer, food, dancing, etc. Sex is a thing, I believe, that brings enjoyment. And a man will always find time for sex if it’s his favorite pleasure.
Random boys would schedule time to go drink and have a good time. I’m not saying every pleasure is bad. But we all must agree that it becomes evil if it takes a hold of your will, dragging you to do it at anytime it wishes. I’ve heard stories of where men have to run out and smoke during work because they can’t seem to have peace. They can’t live without that ‘god’, or thing. Spiritually, that sounds like bondage.
For how can man, the namer and tamer of all things be enslaved by the very things he named or tamed! Just imagine God—having made the sun—bow to it and live like He can’t live without the sun! Imagine God, addicted to something lesser than Him. That’s all wrong! Just like He has dominion over things unseen and seen, man has to, as well, for man came from God’s image.
Now, back to the main subject. To be ‘addicted’ means to involve oneself in something habitually (in habits) to the exclusion (the act of shutting out) of almost everything else.
So, can I say I’m addicted to God! Sure. And that’s an addiction that has no flaw in it. For there a man is rightly finding enjoyment in the being that made Him. And that being is GOOD, unlike cigars or the bottle, that come with health issues.
C.S. Lewis said, “There’s no excess of goodness. You can never go too far in the eight direction.” This justifies my point.
When I found myself awake—and I know many of you who love God have found yourself awake even earlier than 4 in the morning—I reconciled pleasures and time.
I could now understand, why, a man would lose sleep and just be present with God that early even if they slept very late or had a tiresome day because, one; if it’s a thing that brings you enjoyment, you will NEVER fail to find time for it. If it’s things, then the higher pleasure will get more time. If God brings you enjoyment… if He is the higher pleasure, you won’t fail to find time for Him. If another thing is, then God will get less of your time, and attention. Two; if it brings you the most pleasure, then you’ll be addicted (having habits involving it all the time) and three; it will not matter what time. Night or Day, midnight or noon, you’ll always find time for it.
During the conference, one of the panelists, Pastor Washington, mentioned having been set free from smoking by Jesus. He said he doesn’t know how, but he knows that effortlessly, the bondage broke after encountering Jesus deeply. He discovered, from the quoted words from Apostle Grace, that Jesus was that higher pleasure, in whom He found much exceeding enjoyment, as opposed to the smoking he had previously done.
Now, we have to settle it indeed, like my fellow Inkling C.S. Lewis would say, that we can’t find any higher pleasure than God Himself. For in Him all things consist. In Him we live and move and have our being. Take Him out of the picture and you … would have never been alive to have seen any picture!
“No wonder He is the most High,” Apostle Grace added. “He can as well, take you to a height, beyond which the lower highs from drugs and cigars could never take you.” This in other words, according to the definition of addiction, would mean, In God is where one can find the highest form of enjoyment.
For indeed, why would man find it in an animal or anything else that He created. Yet He too carries a spirit, made of the very life giving air, that God breathed in Him.
Even when men have encountered God, and still struggle with less pleasures & addictions, it is only a matter of time, before they realize, nothing can compare to the kind of pleasure God gives. And the rest effortlessly disencumber, giving in to the Highest pleasure!
So, I do hope . . . God becomes your highest pleasure. Not just the higher pleasure . . . BUT the HIGHEST PLEASURE. For when He is, He works in you to avail to Him. Heck, He works the times to avail themselves to you for Him, for after all, isn’t He the maker, and wielder of time! …
And—oops, His Spirit just reminded me—that on His right hand are pleasures evermore! In God, there are other pleasures that man can never find unless He has yielded to Him.
I believe these are some of the ‘and all these things shall be added to you…’ I’m not saying affluence will be added unto you and then you’ll find pleasure in it!—No. I believe, that in knowing God, He’ll give us other things IN HIM . . .that will bring us the kind of enjoyment that we have never imagined.
But then also, if He has made Christ sit at His right hand, until He makes all His enemies His footstool, and has had you sit in Christ, and then we substitute this truth into Psalms 16:11, then that means Christ is a pleasure evermore. And since you’re in Christ, you too become a pleasure evermore.
Meaning, men find enjoyment in you. Men locate you and mine that joy out! And this can be applied two-way: Beyond man, even God finds enjoyment just being with you too!
You’re a Pleasure to Him!
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Psalms 16:11 You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
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