Book 3 of Musings Discipline is the Route to Freedom

The love of pleasure is one of the greatest enemies of the victorious Christian life.

Discipline requires that we deny ourselves and follow Christ each day. This means when we have to choose between pleasure and doing what is right, we do what is right even though it causes us grief.

I have noticed, in my all too brief Christian life, that the love of pleasure is one of the greatest enemies of the victorious Christian life.

Treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:4)

But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. (1 Timothy 5:6)

Now, when you speak of loving pleasure you are speaking of us Americans, even American Christians. Probably many other cultures scorn us because we are soft and pleasure-loving. But I notice each one of them has its own way of finding pleasure.

The rewards offered in the Bible to the victorious saint are marvelous indeed. For example, the rewards set forth in the second and third chapters of the Book of Revelation.

When it is brought to the attention of the believer that the rewards normally associated with the average church member, such as ruling the nations with Jesus, are designated for the victorious saints-to no one else, that person is brought to a decision. He or she has to make a choice.

What choice does the believer have to make? The choice is simple: "Do I continue to live in the manner that brings pleasure to me; or do I launch out into a new kind of life that may not bring much pleasure to me?"

How often the choice is between discipleship and pleasure!

This is where discipline enters the picture. The person of integrity, when faced with the decision whether to follow the path that leads to pleasure, or whether to do what is right even though the result of that choice may bring grief, gets a grip on himself and goes in the direction of what he perceives to be the right way. He or she may or may not be a Christian. (Many Christians are lacking in integrity, and for this reason can never make a success of the Christian discipleship.)

If any of us chooses to follow the path of pleasure, even though he knows it is the wrong way to go, he eventually bring himself into bondage. If any of us chooses to deny himself, take up his cross, and follow the Lord Jesus, he eventually finds himself in a large place of spiritual freedom.

Jesus taught us that whoever commits sin is the slave of sin. That which seemed to us so desirable proved to be a trap bringing chains upon us.

Here is a paradox: freedom to follow the path of pleasure leads to bondage; the discipline of denying the way of pleasure and bearing our personal cross after the Lord Jesus leads to freedom.

There really is no third choice. Either we follow our adamic appetites and passions, or else we seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. We either choose the path of pleasure and die, or choose the way of the cross and live.

Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. (Luke 9:23-24)