One of the main purposes of having a physical body is for us to be able to enjoy some level of pleasures.
Is God against all form of pleasures?
No, He isn’t.
He created the body with a prime desire toward pleasure because it’s a vital part of life.
In fact, pleasure helps maintaining balance between the different aspects of life.
The body is equipped with chemicals, such as oxytocin, dopamine, and so on which play a major role in how we feel mentally, emotionally, and physically.
When these chemicals are released when doing something pleasurable, they stimulate our body to generate the “feel-good” feeling we experience.
The right type of pleasure is good for us physically, emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually.
But the problem has to do with enjoying the wrong type of pleasure.
Pleasure Becomes Perverted
Even though pleasure has become one of the most potent weapons that Satan is using against humanity, but you need to understand that Satan didn’t create pleasure in its original sense, God is the One who did so.
Satan has simply perverted what God has created in order to establish his own false system to enslave and destroy people.
The enemy has created countless false versions of what true God-given pleasure is all about to deceive mankind.
However, since he is merely a freeloader trying to exploit what God has created for his own destructive end; therefore, his system of pleasure has to feed off on something that God created.
The same neurochemicals flowing from the brain through the body creating the feel-good feeling when doing normal activities are the exact same chemicals that are being flowed when indulging in sinful activities.
They tend to flow at a much higher rate when indulging in sinful activities since these activities are being driven by unhealthy appetites.
God wants us to feel good about certain things in life He truly wants us to enjoy.
For instance, sex was meant to be enjoyable and pleasurable. He wants us to enjoy every bit of its pleasure.
I’m about to say something that sinful people can never agree with me on this.
That pleasure was meant to be enjoyed only within the context of marriage.
Any type of pleasure that goes beyond that is sin, thus possessing the ability to enslave people.
We cannot in any way be smarter than the Creator Himself who knows how every component of our physical body work.
Pleasures that are outside of the will of God weren’t meant to be enjoyed at all due to their overstimulating power over our brain.
These types of pleasures have the ability to spike the flow of neurochemicals, which regulate feeling nearly as 10 times higher than normal.
When that happens, the emotional and sensational part of the brain known as the limbic system which can be best characterized as “the flesh” will start overpowering the rational part of the brain, which is the very seat of “the soul”.
From a physiological level, the brain will start operating in favor of the limbic system, which is irrational and selfish.
Consequently, sinful urges will become nearly as much as 10 times more intense than normal, thus giving rise to out of control behaviors.
This is the exact reality of addictive behaviors many are struggling with.
I’m very sure that’s the main reason that God Himself has commanded us in (1 Corinthians 6:18) to flee sexual immorality due to its engulfing and pervasive nature.
Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul (1 Peter 2:11).
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry (Colossians 3:5).
Sinful pleasures force their ways on the brain with the purpose of hijacking it.
That part of the brain which registers pleasures gets to register the wrong type of pleasures.
The truth is that sinful pleasures were not meant to be registered at all in the brain because the body and the mind were not built to process these types of pleasures.
What do sinful pleasures do?
They create unquenchable desires for more and more of the same thing but with diminishing returns since there is no lasting satisfaction.
It’s only pleasure of the moment rooted on insatiable desires.
Once people have given themselves over to sin, there’s going to be an adaptation taking place sooner or later in the brain and the mind. That adaptation gets to become a lifestyle.
These pleasures will reverse the normal function of the brain, thus undermining the mind’s ability to keep it in check.
The body in its desperate attempt to adjust itself with something that it wasn’t built for will develop a tolerance and a false sense of comfort overtime with these pleasures.
When that happens, people will have to go deeper and deeper so that they can enjoy the same level of pleasures they used to enjoy at first or more.
They will be driven to have certain profound experiences which will stimulate a much higher level of pleasures than usual that will be deeply embedded in their mind.
These experiences will then unleash irresistible desires to go back and participate in their sins in order to recreate these experiences.
The power of Satan to drag, excite, or entice people in these sins is unleashed through these pleasures.
The desires being built in connection to these pleasures have become an out of control force in their lives.