John 15:11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
We live in a world of addictions. People are addicted to pain meds, illegal drugs, alcohol, porno, gambling, shopping; the list is pretty much endless. All of us are susceptible to addictive behavior, it is part of the flaw of having a fallen nature. We all have certain vices that we prefer and easily fall prey to their promises of pleasure. The promise of pleasure is at the heart of all addiction, humans are willing to risk their marriage, their health, their jobs, and even their very lives for the momentary pleasures offered by the voices that seem to drowned out all sensible behavior. How can a man be free from the quagmire of sin that entraps him? The superior pleasure offered by Christ is the only permanent solution to this dilemma. There is a sweeter pleasure in Christ that is greater than all the inferior pleasures of this world. John Piper says this pleasure is available to us in the written word, check this out.
“The divine aim of Scripture is not that by reading we be moderately joyful. The aim is that our joy—the joy of Christ in us—be full. Full would mean, at least, so strong that it pushes any idolatrous competing pleasures out of our heart. It would mean that selfishness has come to an end. We are no longer to be a sinkhole of craven neediness, but a fountain of life—givers, not takers. That is what Jesus meant when he said, “The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life”. That water is drunk through his word. And the overflowing joy he promises, therefore, comes through reading . I am sure there is a fullness of divine joy that we will not attain until we see his unmediated glory; but who can tell what measures of joy in God are possible, even in this fallen world, if we give ourselves utterly to the word of God?”
Piper has discovered a path to this joy which seems absurd to the unrenewed mind. He says that is in reading the Bible for ourselves that Christ is revealed to us. When that happens in your life the chains of addiction will be broken. They lose their pull on us in light of the higher pleasure found only in the Lord.
