Ecclesiastes 11:9,10 Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity.
Over the years I have been asked, How can I enjoy life if I am a Christian? With all the rules to follow and all the commands to keep up, how can I have fun in life? The answer is simple, as a Christian your attitude towards what is FUN is changed, or should be....you would no longer have a need to serve your flesh....but to serve your God. And in Ecclesiastes, there is the two edged sword of life revealed, " Enjoy your life ... follow your heart ... but beware ... with choices come consequences ... and judgement!" That is the key to Free Will. God in His ultimate wisdom and love created men to bring Him comfort and fellowship and to have obedience instilled in man without applying "forced" restrictions, as He wanted to have a relationship with His creation, a living breathing being who had the opportunity to choose, to enjoy life and God at the same time. This is why He told Adam in Genesis his choices about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, giving Adam a choice to have his relationship planted firmly in God or to choose to venture off the path...we know what happened....living our lives as Christians doesn't mean that we are poured out of a mold without the chance to grow...we are given the opportunity to grow "into" our new life in Christ, sure we are gonna make the wrong choices because we are in the "flesh" on this Earth, but as long as we follow our heart and not our carnal mind, we should be pretty well grounded and make decisions based on what would please God instead of just pleasing ourselves.
We have all heard putting off the Old Man and putting on the New Man, this is exactly what it means our old choices had lead us wrong, our new choices will or should be leading us in the right direction. Can we have fun like this? Sure, fellowship with brother and sister Christians is a blast, choosing to let go of the old ways and start life anew is a challenge but nonetheless it is or can be as exciting as we make it. In the lower verse we are told to live as "adults" and not "children" think like "adults" and not like "children" when it comes to choosing how we would define "fun" in our life. Maturity has its pluses .... putting off the "old Man" is all about believing that Christ in us and if He is in us then He is for us, and if He be for us who can be against us?
