Disguised as Pleasure

I read a story recently about a young man who had chosen an exotic animal as 
his pet—a very large python snake which cost him several hundred dollars…and 
his life.  The young man was found dead of asphyxiation, with his pet still coiled 
around his neck.  

The sad story brought to mind other pets we all know about.  We even call them 
pets – "pet vices."  You'll recognize the kind.  A few drinks first disguised as 
pleasure escalate to too many drinks too often, and then to a chronic addiction 
called alcoholism – where it begins choking the life from the one who started as a 
"social drinker."

Or perhaps an employee borrows a few dollars from petty cash to sponsor a brief 
pleasure, with full intention of quick reimbursement.  But instead of 
reimbursement, a lifestyle of excess begins choking the budget, leading the 
employee to "borrow" again and again…until an auditor catches the discrepancy 
and it is labeled embezzlement.  

Maybe an office friendship is so pleasant that it drifts into flirtation which 
eventually explodes into adultery.  A marriage is choked to death and a family is 
destroyed.  Once Satan entered the relationship, what started as a beautiful 
friendship quickly made a u-turn toward disaster. 

Pet vices are often disguised as innocent pleasure.  When Satan becomes a part 
of the pleasure, pet vices use both their names.  They are pets in your favor and 
they hold you tightly in their vice grip, just as the python held his young master.  
What Satan has disguised as pleasure, instead leads to sure destruction.

Check your life.  Do your pleasures pass an integrity examination?  Are they 
pleasures that allow you to grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually?  Are you 
able to openly share them with family and friends?  Do family and friends 
approve your choices?  Do you feel good about your choices?  Would God OK 
your choices?  If your answers are "yes," your pet pleasures probably pass the 
integrity examination.

Ask if your choices are causing pain to yourself or to anyone else?  If you stay on 
the same road, is there a crash around the corner? Do you care if everybody 
knows?  Do you care if God knows?  If your answers to THESE questions are 
"yes," perhaps your pet pleasure is in reality a pet vice, which, if not released, will 
choke you to death.

And by the way, when asking the test question, remember that God already 
knows.