Most of us will have heard of the outlook and belief of Hedonism. In case you have not,  let’s just leave aside its history and origins and say it means as the Cambridge Dictionary says,  “living and behaving in ways that mean you get as much pleasure out of life as possible, according to the belief that the most important thing in life is to enjoy yourself.”

I am by nature quite a cheerful person. I can think and sink deeply, but I enjoy life and enjoy life in God. Most of my best thinking in private takes me up the way into freedom and hope and gives me the seeds of something life-giving to share with others I speak to or meet. I am not morose: I look upon people and treat people  with the mercy, kind and steadfast love and grace of God that I have received in Christ. I am optimistic. I can be militaristic and simplistic.  At times, grumpiness and irritability are clothes that I seem to want to slip into more than I want to if you know what I mean, though it is often a bit of a put on act! However, basically, I smile a lot and it is genuine. It reflects what is going on inside me and how I am looking at what is happening around me.

I also love the Church: well to be honest I love some of it and tolerate some of it. I like being with God’s people: well to be honest I like being with some of them and …well you can complete the sentence. I need to keep working on that one. Nonetheless, there is a thought that is going through my mind often. It just seems to be there and it won’t go away but runs like an underground current of concern. I could sum it up in the form of a question: is legalistic religion being replaced by hedonistic religion?

It has become a bit of a catchphrase that as Christians we do not believe in religion we believe in relationship with God. I will let that go for a moment. (It is not quite biblical, but to take it on can wait for another time, if that time ever comes at all and if I feel there is any point in trying to stop a runaway train with a full head of steam). However getting rid of legalistic religion does not mean I get rid of God’s commands. There is life in the commandments of God, they are good and are for our good. As those who have trusted Christ we know we cannot find salvation through our keeping of the commandments, but that does not mean we are to jettison them. Yet, I find increasingly that even among my brothers and sisters in Christ there is a tendency to dismiss any reference to what God says in His Word about how  human beings in general and His covenant people in particular  are to live and conduct themselves, as being legalistic. Pleasurable spiritual experience seems to be the more foundational pursuit now for many, rather than God’s word and ways. That pursuit is often underpinned by a theology of discipleship and mission based on hyper-grace, or cheap-grace; the unholy reaching out to the the unholy and staying unholy together rather than spurring one another on to live out what it means to be saved.

I would go further. Legalism is being replaced by Hedonism. It is as though  Christ is excitedly regarded as a means to live out  a deeper belief without the need for self examination or accountability: He is in my life to bring me pleasure and enjoyment and that is about it. Remember the definition of hedonism at the start of this particular blog? “Living and behaving in ways that mean you get as much pleasure out of life as possible, according to the belief that the most important thing in life is to enjoy yourself.”

Probably all of us have been infected by this outlook in some way.  “Search me O God and know my heart,” is a good  prayer to bring to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here are some words from Psalm 19 that I hope will help us all to think about the refreshing there is to be found in thinking upon and living out what God says: