Keep Your Engine Running
For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? ––––Mark 8:36
My nice car and my money can’t give me a laugh or a hug, or cry or be hurt by my stupidity. Things are safe to love because they require no character, but they’re unsafe for your soul because they are soulless. Don’t worship things or become more concerned about what you own or don’t own more than God. Ask yourself, “Am I in bondage to credit card bills? Am I tithing regularly? Am I being generous? Am I trying to impress others with what I drive or wear? Am I being a good steward of God’s money? Am I obsessing over a toy?” Make a heart adjustment; clean your carburetor.
Hedonists are bad at relationships because they pimp people, seeing them ultimately as objects of achieving self-gratification. For them, life is transactional rather than covenantal; it is a trading platform rather than a kingdom journey. Nobody I have ever known enjoys being prostituted for someone else’s high. Don’t worship “feelings,” physical sensations, or risky behaviors because if you do, you will end up addicted to something and enslaved to it.
Satan wants your god to be the reward center called the ventral tegmental area of your brain, which releases dopamine. It’s the rat in the maze that keeps tapping the button to get more bits of bacon. But shutting down that dopamine rush is not easy. This is an emotional intimacy adjustment. Change your oil—trade your old, grungy sludge for God’s oil that never runs out.
Satan is a crooked mechanic, always suggesting things that we don’t really need, or distractions that will disrupt our absolutely necessary relationship with God. Our antidote is thinking about the goodness of God and how we can show our gratitude for it. Don’t get sucked in by the crooked mechanic.
Father, thank you that you hide my sin and provide a way to defeat it.