Kingdom Currency (2)

You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16.11

Not a bad thing
Psychologists, since the beginning of the discipline, have argued about the essence of what it means to be human.

Some, like Freud, insist that we are motivated by physical pleasure, while others, like Victor Frankl or Abraham Maslow, believe that some higher purpose or “peak experience” defines us – a more inward sense of pleasure that takes the form of fulfillment or ecstasy. Humanistic psychologists argue that something like “self-actualization” is our reason for being, that human pleasure is maximized by each of us discovering and living the life which is uniquely our own.

When we consider what the Bible teaches about humankind, we find that each of these psychologies has hit upon the truth, if only in part.

According to the Bible, human beings are made for pleasure. But not just any old pleasure. Certainly not merely the pleasures of the flesh or of material bounty. Not even the pleasure of “being somebody” or achieving some higher purpose in life. None of these gets at the essence of the kind of pleasure that makes human beings what they are.

Human beings, made in the image and likeness of God, only realize their fullest potential and pleasure as they participate in the very being of God and know and experience the pleasure He takes in Himself and His glory. As Augustine put it on the opening page of His Confessions, “You have made us for Yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.” In God, that is – our lives hidden in God and bathed in His pleasure.

Pleasure, in other words, is not a bad thing. Indeed, we’re made for pleasure, but for the pleasure of God above all.

Made for eternal pleasures
God wants us to know fullness of joy and pleasures without end. But He does not want us to be satisfied with merely fleeting pleasures – the kind that moth and rust can corrupt or thieves can break through and steal. God has made us for eternal pleasures, pleasures that are, first of all, spiritual – and therefore cannot be affected by any material dearth or deprivation. Such pleasures are bound up in God Himself, and in order to know them, we must abide in Him.

We are made for pleasure, and every human being’s highest pleasure is to participate in the very being of God.

God promises that we can know such pleasure, and that, knowing pleasure in Him, we will want for nothing else. In Jesus Christ, God has brought all His precious and very great promises to fullness and fruition, so that, as we rest in Christ and reach out for God’s promises in Him, we may actually partake of the divine essence – we may know and enjoy and dwell in God Himself, and thus know fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (2 Pet. 1.4; 2 Cor. 1.20).

Seeking pleasure in the wrong places
This is what God was promising the people of Israel as they returned to the land of promise from exile in Babylon and Persia. Having received grace from Him, He would give them more grace if they would believe in Him and, trusting in His promises, build the temple as His dwelling in their midst, before they concentrated on building dwellings for themselves. With God firmly established in their midst, the people would know all the fullness, bounty, security, joy, and pleasure they could possible enjoy, and they would want for nothing.

But the people of Israel did not believe the promises of God. They sought pleasure in things, possessions, and money in the bank, rather than in the presence of God. And too many Christians live most of their lives just like that. They read the precious and very great promises of God. They know that Jesus calls them to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and that He promises everything they need or want will be supplied as they do. Yet, rather than abide and grow in His grace, they become distracted by the ways of the world, thinking these to be the source of true pleasure. They profess to live in the Kingdom of God and His grace, yet they default to the economy of getting-and-spending to acquire and possess the pleasure and happiness they seek.

We need to understand the ways of the divine economy and how to manage the currency of the Kingdom, the currency of grace. How we praise and thank God for His marvelous grace!

But living in grace, and spending it lavishly on others? Well, let’s just say we’ve got some work to do.

For reflection or discussion
1.  Do you think it’s right to say that human beings were made for pleasure? Why or why not?

2.  How do people misconstrue this notion, and what does it lead them to do?

3.  What do we mean by eternal pleasures? Why is it important that we should seek these?

Next steps – Demonstration: What do you think it means to “spend grace lavishly on others”? Ask a pastor or church leader about this idea. How would you counsel a new believer to make this his “currency” in the Kingdom of God?

T. M. Moore

This week’s ReVision study is Part 4 of a 10-part series, “The Kingdom Economy.” You can download “Kingdom Currency” as a free PDF, prepared for personal or group study. Simply click here. Start your day in the Word of God. Study with T. M. in our daily Scriptorium newsletter, as he walks us through the ongoing work of Christ in the book of Acts. You can subscribe to receive Scriptorium each day at 5:00 am Eastern, or go to the website to download each week’s study in a free PDF.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.