Devotional - Loving Pleasure

[David Virtue]

DEVOTIONAL - LOVING PLEASURE

"People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud,
abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love,
unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the
good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers
of God" - 2 Timothy 3:2-4

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland on October 16, 1854. He was raised
a Protestant, but the gifted playwright's flamboyant personality plunged
him into a ruinous life. He died at age 46 and it wasn't until he was on
his deathbed did he confess Christ as his Savior.

The following is part of his confession:

"The gods have given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into
long spells of senseless and sensual ease.... Tired of being on the
heights, I deliberately went to the depths in search for new sensation.
What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to
me in the sphere of passion. I grew careless of the lives of others. I
took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every
little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that
therefore what one has done in the secret chamber, one has someday to cry
aloud from the house-top. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no
longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to
dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace."

What happens when people fail to love the Lord? They plunge themselves into
every sordid pleasure looking for contentment only Christ can bring. Do you
know someone who loves only pleasure? Today in prayer, pray for that person
that they may come to know Jesus Christ.

"Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure when he is really selling himself
a slave to it." - Benjamin Franklin

God's Word: "A man who strays from the path of understanding comes to rest
in the company of the dead. He who loves pleasure will become poor; whoever
loves wine and oil will never be rich." - Proverbs 21:16-17

By Peter Kennedy, Copyright 2000, Devotional E-Mail
DEVOTIONS IN 2 TIMOTHY