Cheap Thrills

It has been said that the best cure for hedonism is an attempt to practice it.

If you chase after pleasure, you will eventually come to the same conclusion as King Solomon: "I said to myself, 'Come now, be merry; enjoy yourself to the full.' But I found that this, too, was futile. For it is silly to be laughing all the time; what good does it do?" (Ecclesiastes 2:1–2 TLB).

The Bible tells us that if the driving desire of our lives is to please ourselves, that very quest will be the source of endless problems and heartaches. "What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn't it the whole army of evil desires at war within you? You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous for what others have, and you can't possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don't have what you want is that you don't ask God for it" (James 4:1–2 NLT).

The people who chase after pleasure never really experience it. It comes down to this: If you live for yourself and your own happiness and pleasure, then you will be a miserable person. It's ironic that the people who live for happiness never find it, while the people who live for God find happiness as a byproduct. The people who chase after pleasure never really experience it. They may find little bits here and there, but nothing to speak of—certainly nothing enduring. Yet the people who live for God experience the ultimate pleasure: a joy that bubbles up from deep down in the inmost being.

Pleasure isn't, in itself, a bad thing, although you might get that impression from some Christians. I think the Christian life is the most pleasurable life around. Why? Because God is the Creator of light and laughter and joy. . .beginning here and now, and stretching on into eternity. The Bible teaches, "You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand" (Psalm 16:11 NIV).

Cheap thrills are a dime a dozen. True and lasting happiness comes from the hand of God.


Greg Laurie  http://harvest.org

Do You Know Jesus?

The Son Question

	"For Jesus is the one referred to in the Scriptures, where it says, 'The stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.' There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved."

— Acts 4:11–12

The conventional wisdom about what happens when you die is that you will stand before God, and if you did enough good works that outweighed your bad works, then you get into heaven, because heaven is for good people. And good people go to heaven.

Then the other belief is that if you have done enough bad things that outweigh your good works, then you will go to hell, because hell is for bad people. Heaven is for good people who get in by good works, while hell is for bad people who do bad things.

But that is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that hell is prepared for the devil and his angels (see Matthew 25:41); it isn't prepared for bad people at all.

Heaven is the dwelling place of God, and the way you get into heaven is on the basis of what you did with Jesus. What God will want to know is did you believe in Jesus Christ?

Even if you have lived a wicked life and sinned throughout all of it, if on your deathbed you were to call out to the Lord Jesus Christ in genuine repentance, you would go to heaven. But if you lived a good life and have been a relatively moral person and have done good deeds, but you have never put your faith in Jesus Christ, then you would not go to heaven. And by the way, your good works never would outweigh your bad works. So be thankful that is not what you will be judged for.

The assurance that we will go to heaven is not as our culture often sees it, but this is as the Bible teaches it. It is the Son question—not the sin question. 


Greg Laurie http://harvest.org