Grace Gems

I subscribe to an e-mail feed called Grace Gems (http://www.gracegems.org/) which sends you a daily e-mail usually containing a quote from a puritan. I found this one particularly convicting.

"Lovers of pleasure--rather than lovers of God." 2 Timothy 3:4

Is the love of pleasure growing upon you, gaining the power and the ascendancy over you? Is it dulling the keenness of your zest for spiritual pleasures? Is it making Bible study, prayer, communion with Christ, meditation upon holy themes--less sweet enjoyments than before? Is it making your hunger for righteousness, for God--less intense? Is it interfering with the comfort and blessing you used to find in worship services, or in Christian work?

If so, there is only one thing to do--hasten to return to God, cut off the pleasure which is imperiling the soul, and find in Christ the joy which the world cannot give, and which ever enhances the life. We must test all our pleasures and amusements by this rule--Are they helping us to grow into Christ-likeness and spiritual beauty?---J.R. Miller.