“Now then, listen, you lover of pleasure, lounging in your security”… “Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you….”
These verses address the delusion of self-security and the distraction of pursuing pleasure… We desire to be self-sustainable, but we weren’t created to be alone; we were designed to have unbroken fellowship with our Heavenly Father, and nothing created will take the place of the Creator.
When our soul is empty because fellowship with God is lacking, we tend to “self-medicate” in pursuit of pleasure. It may be drugs, alcohol, reckless behavior, or something as subtle as the dopamine hit you get from ordering unneeded things online. Whatever your go-to “medication” is, there is great danger in trying to fill the God shaped hole in your heart with anything other than God. And the threat in our affluent society is that there is always another trinket available to try to fill that hole.
We chase pleasure and security as a distraction from the voice that is yelling in our head that we are unfulfilled … It is dangerous to pursue wealth and finite objects to give you safety and purpose… because if you attain them, they will only disappoint… and you will never be in more danger than when you believe you are “lounging in your own security”.
Our problem is that FedEx can’t deliver what we need. It can only deliver things that dull the pain we feel from lack of purpose. Real meaning is not found in things. It is found in walking with God. The only security that we can count on is being redeemed by the blood of Christ and filled with His Holy Spirit. And the goal of the enemy is to distract us from that fact.
We must intentionally resist pursuing worldly pleasure and building our security on anything other than the loving mercy of God.
2nd Timothy chapter 3 says there will be people in the end times who will be “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.”
Not only must I have nothing to do with falsely religious people who speak of God but pursue the world … I must be sure I am not one of them.
“Many of us pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that we hurry past it.” ― Søren Kierkegaard
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