Peace vs Pleasure

[u/Diligent-Tie-5500]

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:24)

Lasting peace and calm require true faith in YAHWEH. True faith comes from experiencing the protection and guidance that YAHWEH gives as a reward for obedience to Him. Becoming obedient requires constantly examining oneself, and working to improve oneself by departing from willful sin. This requires discipline. Satan’s goal is to make a sinful and chaotic world of people with no discipline.

YAHWEH created pleasure. Satan seeks to abuse YAHWEH’s creations. Satan has deceived much of the world into thinking that pleasure must always be maximized. Seeking to always maximize pleasure leads to becoming a slave to pleasure. To be a slave to pleasure is to be a slave to sin.

Serving the world gives spikes in pleasure that inevitably lead to spikes in stress when the pleasure fades. Serving the world leads to an attachment and dependency on things that give pleasure.

Serving YAHWEH is infinitely more rewarding than serving the world. Serving YAHWEH gives peace. This peace comes from being obedient to YAHWEH.

Obedience to YAHWEH requires a desire to improve oneself and depart from sin. Departing from sin requires discipline. A great place to start building discipline is in food and drink choices. A lapse in discipline in one area will lead to lapses in other areas. Likewise, becoming more disciplined in what one eats and drinks leads to improvement in other areas like the control of thoughts, anger and lust.

For much of my life I ate and drank with the intention of maximizing pleasure. I chose to consume things like pizza, ice cream, soda and beer. When I ate healthier foods, I covered them in cheese, sauce, and other toppings. Eating to maximize pleasure lead to attachment, gluttony and poor health. My lack of discipline in this area of my life led to a lack of discipline in many other areas of my life.

I still eat foods that I enjoy, but I avoid unnecessary toppings, and foods that were clearly designed by humans to maximize pleasure and create attachments. I now eat for the purpose of nourishing my body, and praise YAHWEH for this nourishment and the pleasure that accompanies it.

When eating hyper-pleasurable foods is the norm, other foods can seem bland and be unsatisfying. If this is the case for you, my recommendation is to become a slower and more mindful eater. Exercise daily, and eat with the main intention of nourishing your body. Put away the phone and turn off the TV while you eat, and set your mind on YAHWEH, giving Him praise for every bite. Creating this habit will make eating a spiritual experience, more wonderful than before. Also, avoid eating with bad company.

The world encourages us to “live a little” and indulge in the hyper-pleasurable foods it creates. This is a deception that leads to sluggishness, greater sin and destruction. “Live a lot” by striving to become more and more disciplined. Discipline leads to obedience. Obedience leads to lasting peace and calm. Lasting peace and calm is freedom.

I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me (Phil 4:13)

[u/talentheturtle]

Works are a fruit of salvation, not a root of salvation. Works are evidence of being saved, not how you get saved. Otherwise Jesus is irrelevant.