I find that temptation hits me the hardest when I have shifted into the amoral mode. What do I mean by this? Well, do you ever have days where you’re tired, the day is over and you’ ready to wind down and have your own time now?

Almost like a mini-vacation away from work, family responsibilities, school or Bible studies. And now it’s time to chill and just enjoy yourself. You don't have intentions to sin, but neither do you intend to seek God. You are just looking for, what you would consider, well-deserved pleasure.
Pleasure is good. Enjoying life, watching a great movie, eating a delicious meal, laughing at a hilarious joke—these are all enjoyments God has given us and wants us to enjoy. I’m not anti-pleasure. But sometimes I switch into a “time for me” mode, almost as if I’ve deserved to enjoy myself now and no one else should interfere. This is my chance to temporarily forget about work, forget about studies, forget about appointments…and unfortunately, to forget about the presence of God and the fact that He wants to be glorified and honored every second of my existence.

The Wrong View of Pleasure

And then I become an open-bellied toad, a tempting target for Satan’s flaming missiles (Eph 6:16). You see the problem is not that I relaxed or took time to vacate from daily work and responsibilities. That’s good and needs to happen regularly. Even God rested after six days of work (Gen 2:2-3). The problem is thinking that my walk with God is only work-related and not 24 hour seven, as if I have to be laboring to honor God, and when it’s time to relax, I can temporarily ignore His presence.

But God is every bit as present when we are serving in ministry as when we are jumping on a trampoline. It is God’s will that we recognize the unchanging holiness of God in every breath and at every moment. The author of Hebrews writes, “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb 4:13). Jesus exemplified this like none before Him. Whether He was teaching from a boat or sleeping under the stars, wincing at the unmerciful lashes of the Roman’s whip or having supper with Matthew’s tax-collecting friends, Jesus never took a vacation from the presence of God. He worked and He rested. He taught and He ate. He got up and He laid down. He laughed and He cried. But through it all, not once did He let the relaxation of the moment eclipse the vivid presence of the Father in His life. It was His Father’s unfading presence at every moment that caused Him to say, “I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him” (John 8:28-29).
Jesus never took a vacation from God. And although Jesus enjoyed many things that God has given mankind to enjoy, He never enjoyed them at the expense of forgetting His Father in heaven and glorifying Him in all His actions.

Entertainment is good. The joys of marriage, the taste of a scrumptious meal, the excitement over a touchdown, the adrenaline thrill of sky-diving—these are not self-indulgent sins, but God-created pleasures. Paul warned the young pastor Timothy that in the last days poison-spouting heretics would tell believers that it is holy to deny the human body of God-given pleasures like marriage and certain foods (1 Tim 4:1-3). But Paul called these doctrines demonic. They are the teachings of “deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Tim 4:1), for they ignore that fact that these enjoyments are created by God (1 Tim 4:3) and that everything God created is good (1 Tim 4:4). After the final day of creation, Moses tells us that, “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31).

In contrast to these false teaches, Paul gives us three attitudes we should have when enjoying the pleasures of life.

First, God’s pleasure gifts are to produce an attitude of enjoyment.

Paul tells us that every physical pleasure, whether it be marriage or food or anything else, is to be “gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth” (1 Tim 4:3). This is nothing less than Christian hedonism, gratefully enjoying the gratifications of God’s good creation. God’s greatest priority—even higher than the salvation of sinners—is to be glorified. He not only wants to be glorified through our sufferings (1 Pet 2:20; 4:13) but also through our pleasures. Whether you’re eating cheesecake or playing chess, God is pleased when you enjoy His good creation, for He is the God “who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy” (1 Tim 6:17).

Second, God’s pleasure gifts are to produce an attitude of appreciation.

Paul writes, “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude” (1 Tim 4:4). And again in verse 3, God created all things to be gratefully shared (1 Tim 4:3). Gratitude. Gratefully shared. These are the attitudes God wants us to have when enjoying any sort of pleasure.

Like the single leper out of ten who returned to thank Jesus for healing him (Luke 17:15-16), an attitude of appreciation is always preceded by an attitude of unworthiness. This Leper was a Samaritan. A half breed. A half-Jew, half-Assyrian and the full-blooded Jews hated the Assyrians. They were the ones responsible for dragging the northern kingdom of Israel into exile 700 years before. And the Jews despised them and anyone related to them. To be a Samaritan was like calling a black man a nigger. It’s no wonder this Samaritan felt totally unworthy of the grace shown him. His racial disadvantage produced an attitude of utter unworthiness. And for this reason he was the only one truly thankful!

Thankful people always feel unworthy of the gift they have received. If a father promises his boy a new bicycle in return for his boy fixing the barn, when the boy receives the bicycle he feels that he received what was due him. He earned it, so he should get it. But if the father surprises his boy with a bicycle, even though this boy did nothing to earn it, this boy is overwhelmed with gratitude.

Third, God’s pleasure gifts are to produce an attitude of worship.

Paul writes that these gifts are “sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim 4:5). Sanctified means set apart unto God. It means to take something and use it for the Lord’s glory and honor. Everything, from the most material to the most ethereal is to be sanctified to God.

Paul is not saying that we are to turn every form of entertainment into a Bible study or prayer time, but rather that everything we do is to be motivated by and controlled by daily study of the Word and constant prayer. Entertainment is not a time does to take a hiatus from honoring God’s Word and praying about all things. You can have a great time and honor God the whole way through.
This morning I ate a piece of toast. I did not get out my Bible and memorize a verse while I was eating it, nor did I necessarily say a prayer while swallowing that crispy bite of butter-lathered bread. But I can eat that toast, remembering the God who gave it to me, and I can use the energy received from that toast to serve others throughout my day. Even the most material of pleasures can be enjoyed with total worship, if we remember the God who gave them to us. You can throw a baseball with every bit as much worship as you sing a praise song. That’s why Paul wrote, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31).

Some God-created pleasures have been so twisted and inoculated with perversion that people really believe that Satan created them. Sensual dancing, drugs, smoking or drunkenness, how could these things be created by God?

But Satan never created a thing. He only twists what God already made. When God created the world, He saw that it was good. In 1 Timothy 3:4, Paul says that “everything created by God is good.” The tobacco leaf.¹ Grape juice (the first source of alcohol). The coca bush (from which cocaine is made²). Sulfur, charcoal and saltpeter (which combined make gun powder). The art of dancing. Satan did not create these things. God did. It is how they are used that determines whether or not they are sinful.

Endnotes

1. Tobacco comes from the plants nicotiana tabacum and nicotiana rustic.
2. Erythroxylum