Lovers of Pleasure

Just recently I was asked to take on some additional responsibilities in my local church. I hesitated to accept, because I knew these responsibilities would take up a lot of my time and would also be a long term commitment. I would venture to guess that most people would completely understand that hesitation. However, as I thought and prayed about whether I should do it something odd happened. I began to focus not on the time and effort and commitment required, but I began to focus on something else - what was the real reason behind my hesitation?

We all say that we want to make a difference in other people's lives. In theory, we all agree that we should give of ourselves and our time in order to make that difference, but most of us never really do it. Sure, we're ok with a short commitment here or there - but don't ask us to do anything long term. Why is that? What is it that prevents us from doing what we know we should? What is it that prevents us from giving our time - our free time - to do His work? For me, the answer was found in this verse:

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 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— having a form of godliness but denying its power. - 2 Timothy 3:1-5

We live in a society that loves it pleasure. We love to vacation, read books, watch TV, hunt and fish, play sports, shop and just hang out doing nothing. Don't get me wrong - there is nothing inherently wrong in any of those activities. But when we hesitate to do His work because of a love of our own pleasures then we have a problem. We work - not so that we have to give to others (as the Bible commands) - but to give more to ourselves. I hear people (myself included) saying "I just don't have time right now". Is that really true? Is every hour and minute of our day literally packed with activities that we just have to do? Of course not. What we are really saying when we make those statements is "I've got other things I'd rather do".

So I repented of my hesitation (or I should probably say I repented of my reason for hesitating). I decided to go ahead and make that commitment. I find myself pretty busy these days, but I find myself pretty fulfilled as well. As I write this, I hope I'm not putting any condemnation on anyone. That is certainly not my reason for writing. But as I get older I just realize more and more that our time is limited. We only have a short season to labor - to live our lives for the One that gave His life for us. Let's not waste it.