Thursday, November 27, 2014

Are you pursuing the desires of your eyes? Ecclesiates 11-12

Ecclesiastes 11:9-10
Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. So, remove grief and anger from your heart and put away pain from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.

Solomon continues, toward the end of Ecclesiastes, to tell us what he has learned in life.   When reading this book, we must never forget that Solomon is on a journey to experience everything in life and to give us a report; assuming we will simply listen to him and not attempt to do this at home.   Yet, that is what we do.   Solomon lives a life full of everything he can (he was, at the time, the richest man on earth) and he expects us to simply believe him.    He knows, however, we won't simply take his word for it and, therefore, leaves us these final words, we read above.   Having reached old age He tells us to "rejoice" in our youth.   Grab the gusto!!   He even tells us to "follow the impulses of  your heart and the desires of the eyes."  However, Solomon warns us, God WILL bring us into judgement for those things we pursue.   We might not take his word for the fleetingness of life and we might want to try all the vain things in life ourselves, but, Solomon wants us to know that we will be judged for those things.   We might think it is our "right" to pursue all these things, especially in our youth.   But God is taken note and will be judge accordingly.   Solomon solution is to remove everything from us that brings grief, anger and pain because life is short and fleeting.   If we don't get it, he must be referring to sin in life, as that is what brings grief, anger and pain.   When we have grief and anger in our hearts, it will lead to pain in our bodies.  Our ability to allow God to take those out of our hearts allows us to live a free life and a life full of joy and peace from God.  The fruit of the Spirit is the life Solomon envisions for us.   A life full of joy, peace, longsuffering, patience, gentleness, etc.   God gives us this life; we don't attempt to find it and live it by the choices we make.  The prime of life is fleeting.   We must allow the gift of God to live in us rather than pursue the things of our desires and bring pain and suffering to ourselves and those we love.  

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