"...what the law (of God) demands, namely pleasure and love."
- Martin Luther
God demands pleasure? Really? Wow. This brings two thoughts to mind:
1) That we are WRONG when we outwardly obey God's commands while there is displeasure and unwillingness in our hearts. "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." (1 Sam. 16) Jesus was not at all impressed with the discipline and obedience of Pharisees. He said, "their hearts are far from me." The purpose of God's law is something much deeper than simply to "discipline" or "improve" us outwardly. The purpose is to show us the GOOD we were meant for and then to point out the sad fact that our hearts do not want it, but have rather been deluded to seek pleasure in EVIL.
We are like ignorant children who want to go on making mud pies in a slum because we cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a vacation at the beach. (C. S. Lewis) God demands infinite pleasure and love, and somehow we have inwardly hated what he demands (even though it is
exactly what we need and what we were made for!). According to the Bible, our problem is not that we do bad things sometimes, but that we want to do them all the time. And yet none of those bad things bring lasting pleasure or love. So then the law condemns our wayward hearts, and we are left desperate for a Savior, who alone can change us from the inside out.
2) That our desires are not too great but too small. (Lewis again) God is the author of everything that is good in this life, and therefore we Christians could be the sole defenders of every good and pleasurable earthly thing, rather than the smug prohibitors of pleasure that we often are. At a wedding banquet, Jesus turned water into wine. What a profound celebration of the goodness of wine and marriage amidst a world too accustomed to debauchery and perverse sexuality masquerading as "pleasure" and "love".
Here's the thing: We are, by nature, decieved about pleasure and love. We have thought the world to be their creator, and God to be their greatest enemy. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The world's "pleasure" is to drink from what you're drowning in. The world's "love" is to happily cheer you on as you drown.
But in Christ, who has fulfilled the law, we are met with a love that changes our hearts so that we find for the first time, actual pleasure in doing what is good. That's part of what we mean when we say Christ has set us free. We are reborn into a world that actually makes sense - where our hungers are met with actual food.
1) That we are WRONG when we outwardly obey God's commands while there is displeasure and unwillingness in our hearts. "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." (1 Sam. 16) Jesus was not at all impressed with the discipline and obedience of Pharisees. He said, "their hearts are far from me." The purpose of God's law is something much deeper than simply to "discipline" or "improve" us outwardly. The purpose is to show us the GOOD we were meant for and then to point out the sad fact that our hearts do not want it, but have rather been deluded to seek pleasure in EVIL.
We are like ignorant children who want to go on making mud pies in a slum because we cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a vacation at the beach. (C. S. Lewis) God demands infinite pleasure and love, and somehow we have inwardly hated what he demands (even though it is
exactly what we need and what we were made for!). According to the Bible, our problem is not that we do bad things sometimes, but that we want to do them all the time. And yet none of those bad things bring lasting pleasure or love. So then the law condemns our wayward hearts, and we are left desperate for a Savior, who alone can change us from the inside out.2) That our desires are not too great but too small. (Lewis again) God is the author of everything that is good in this life, and therefore we Christians could be the sole defenders of every good and pleasurable earthly thing, rather than the smug prohibitors of pleasure that we often are. At a wedding banquet, Jesus turned water into wine. What a profound celebration of the goodness of wine and marriage amidst a world too accustomed to debauchery and perverse sexuality masquerading as "pleasure" and "love".
Here's the thing: We are, by nature, decieved about pleasure and love. We have thought the world to be their creator, and God to be their greatest enemy. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The world's "pleasure" is to drink from what you're drowning in. The world's "love" is to happily cheer you on as you drown.
But in Christ, who has fulfilled the law, we are met with a love that changes our hearts so that we find for the first time, actual pleasure in doing what is good. That's part of what we mean when we say Christ has set us free. We are reborn into a world that actually makes sense - where our hungers are met with actual food.
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