Quotable Red Like Blood

As the giver of all good things, God has given us many things that are intended for our enjoyment, but we can easily get caught up in pursuing them at the expense of our relationship with our Heavenly Father.  If we're not careful, even though we may say we love God, what we might really mean is that we love all the good stuff.  We don't truly love God until we love him for who he is, rather than just as a provider of all the blessings.  

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke chapter 15, Jesus teaches about two sons:  one who demanded his inheritance so he could run off to a far country and live an anonymous life of wanton sin, and the older hypocritical, self-righteous son.
"In the story. . .both brothers made the same mistake. They went after the Father's stuff but not the Father.  The younger son thought the secret to pleasure was pursuing the  stuff that gave him pleasure.  He ended up in the pig sty feeding the pigs and humming, 'I can't get no satisfaction.'  The pursuit of pleasure is always a losing battle especially if you catch it. The older brother wanted to experience what the younger brother experienced. But he didn't get to and ended up sulking outside the party.  The key for both of them was right there inside the house.  It was the father himself. God has made you for himself.  Pleasure was only created as a gift of love from God.  The experience of pleasure was designed to communicate the love of God.  When we split pleasure off from the love of God, it is cut off from the life source and thrashes around for a while before it lies there motionless and dead. . .God made you to experience exquisite pleasure for all of eternity.  Heaven is full of all the Father's stuff, but the thing that makes it heaven is the presence of the Father.  A place that would have all the Father's stuff without the Father would soon become hell."  (Joe Coffey, Red Like Blood, p. 145).