Fruitless Joys

Over at The Oak Log, Jude had posted this relevant quote to the previous Bunyan post:



“Fruitless joys are what we turn to when life is boring and gray and lonely and we know that tomorrow nothing will have changed. Fruitless joys aren’t necessarily scandalous sins. They may be little more than harmless hobbies in which we invest countless hours to make life a little less dull. They may be the newest gadgets we work so hard to own and worry about losing. They may be the fantasies and daydreams that swirl around in our heads that we know will never come true but somehow strangely bring a measure of excitement to an otherwise dreary life … Fruitless joys don’t transmute of their own accord into pain and discomfort and ugliness. They will lose their grip on your soul only when they are displaced by greater joys, more pleasing joys, joys that satisfy not for the moment but forever.” (Storms, C. Samuel. One Thing: Developing a Passion for the Beauty of God. Fearn, Ross-Shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2004.p137,139)

(HT: Jude St. John)

Mean Thoughts of God

It is from mean thoughts of God that you are not convinced that you have by your sins deserved his eternal wrath and curse. If you had any proper sense of the infinite majesty, greatness, and holiness of God, you would see, that to be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, and there to have no rest day nor night, is not a punishment more than equal to the demerit of sin.-You would not have so good a thought of yourselves; you would not be so clean and pure in your own eyes; you would see what vile, unworthy, hell-deserving, creatures you are. If you had not little thoughts of God, and were to consider how you have set yourselves against him-how you have slighted him, his commandments and threatenings, and despised his goodness and mercy, how often you have disobeyed, how obstinate you have been, how your whole lives have been filled up with sin against God-you would not wonder that God threatens to destroy you for ever, but would wonder that he hath not done it before now.

-Jonathan Edwards, The Works of, Volume 2, From a sermon on divine sovereignty

Edwards’ sharp reproof cuts to the heart. Too often, most often, we think highly of ourselves while our perspective on God waxes cold with contempt because of our little thoughts of God. While it is true that we need to be saved, we need to be saved by God, not from ourselves, but from God Himself.