Tuesday, October 6, 2009

1) Is God pro-pleasure?

God is the God of pleasure, the God of joy. It is vitally important for us to come to believe this, not as an idea in our minds, but as the settled conviction of our hearts. The ultimate goal of human existence is to live consciously, continuously in the presence of God. When God makes Himself real to us we enter into a state where we can actually feel the warmth of His love. This experience of the love of God fills all the emptiness inside of us and brings the soul into a blissful state that is in fact a foretaste of heaven.

We can not experience God’s love and presence in this way until we open all of the doors of our heart to Him. The mind may be fully satisfied and eager to experience more of God, but the mind does not hold the key to the doors of the heart. The mind can not order the heart to open it’s doors to God’s outpoured love.

The heart is afraid to open up to God. Too much bad information has filtered through the mind and made it’s way into the heart. The heart is not convinced that God is love. The heart does not believe that it is safe for to let Him in.

While the mind cannot act directly on the heart and cause those doors to open, it can, by mediating on the goodness of God, slowly but surely reprogram the heart. As this happens, the doors of the heart slowly begin to open and God begins to flood the soul with His love. The purpose of this series of posts is to help you to renew your mind and reassure your heart. The goal of these writings is to bring you to the place where you can actually taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:8). If you can only get a small taste, just a drop of God’s goodness and love experienced in your heart, you will be on the path to discovering heaven on earth.

So then let us begin to know more and more of our God, and to experience more and more of His presence and His love.

You will make known to me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.

Ps. 16:11 NASB

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