We Would Rather Chase Emotional Satisfaction than Spiritual Maturity

As I was getting ready for the day, a thought entered my mind, subtle, and yet piercing.  We (people) would rather chase emotional satisfaction than Spiritual maturity. Think about it: how often do we like and share something because it makes us feel good (or it makes us feel something), or because it fits a narrative we like (politics comes to mind), or we watch something because it hits us on certain emotional levels. We allow things inside of our house through our screens, for example, that we would never walk through the front door because of how they make us feel.

And yet, when it comes to Spiritual maturity and discipline, in our heads, we agree it is more important, but in practice we prove that we still chase emotional satisfaction. For example, how often have you said “I should pray more, I should read my Bible and spiritual books more, I should spend more time with brothers and sisters in Christ” and yet, the television, phone, and computer still rule your life? (I’m preaching to me, here!) God calls us in to relationship with Him. He is so serious about it that He sent His Son to be born of a virgin, live as one of us (the life of righteousness and obedience we could never hope to accomplish), to die bearing the wrath we incurred for our sins, and to rise again conquering the death we earn in our sin. If God takes it seriously, so should we. It begins when we put down the things of the world, and pick up the things of God. Chase your relationship with God in every way. Read, study, pray, seek fellowship and break bread with brothers and sisters in Christ. Run the race as if to win. Emotional satisfaction is for a moment; spiritual maturity has eternal value.

1 Corinthians 9

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

This is my defense to those who would examine me. Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?

Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?

Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting. For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship. What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.