On October, 2009 Brad Scoggin and Taber Halford had the opportunity to share the Gospel to around hundreds students from 20 Public Schools in Santa Cruz, Bolivia… Brad and Taber became part of Mission Generation Team.

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On April 2009, Victory Worldquest Team visited Bolivia, around 9,825 teens were “Set Free” they spoke at 52 Private and Public High Schools in five days. The students lives won’t be the same!

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In the mid 1700s a young Prussian King named Frederick the Great coined the word audacity.  Against overwhelming odds, when any other European monarch would have locked themselves up in the castle and sent emissaries to negotiate terms of surrender, the young Frederick attacked winning the day and eventually the war.  It was a surprise attack because nobody expected light cavalry to charge into a force twenty times their size.  King Frederick’s success against such an overwhelming force still stands today as one of the greatest achievements in military history and is why he is called ‘The Great’.

There was another great man in history that also had the audacity to enter into an overwhelming situation.  His name was Aaron, the brother of Moses.  After an extended ritual Aaron entered the Holy of Holies where he stood totally transparent in the presence of God!  He faced death dressed in a beautiful long robe with golden bells sown onto hem and a cord tied around his ankle.  The bells dragged along the floor signaling to those in the outer chamber that he was still alive; however if any sin was found in him he would have dropped dead.  The cord in that case would have been used to drag him out of the chamber.  To be sure, it was a brazen act of boldness much more daring than Frederick the Great to stand bare before your Creator.

It is all about a pure heart.  As the Creator, God knows how we work.  The reason we need a pure heart to approach God is not because He is ‘The Law’ but because He is The Father.  He is absolutely pure.  He is love.  He is forgiveness.  When we step into His presence without a pure heart He hears us alright and desires to give us our every desire but unfortunately we don’t believe it.  If we don’t believe it we can’t receive it.

Unanswered prayer gets down to mechanics.  The paradox is created when we come to God in need but don’t allow Him to help.  Like Adam we feel too guilty.  Sin creates the guilt.  We feel like we don’t merit help but that doesn’t stop us from asking.

The book of Revelations gives us a great picture.  Jesus is standing at the door of our heart knocking (Rev 3:20-4:1).  He wants to come in but we have the key.  We are calling for help but He can’t do anything unless we open the door.  But we don’t want to open the door because that would expose our messy little lives.

Unfortunately this door is the only way that help can come because it is the door to the things of the Spirit.  Every single thing that God gives to us must come though this door because God is Spirit.  Every thing begins in the Spirit, our healing, our joy and even that new car.  Spiritual things manifest themselves into the flesh.  That is how Jesus was born of Mary; the Spirit becoming flesh.

So we go though the vanity of asking God for stuff we don’t think we can receive.  We keep asking and asking, going through all kinds of formulas and gyrations but with the safety of having the door locked.  God gets a bad rap about not caring or being cruel when we are the ones at fault.

Aaron gave us a great example.  He cleaned up before an audience with the King.  He went through a complete cleansing, sanctification, purification process to insure that he was right with God which meant that he was right with himself.  This is what gave him the confidence to talk with God and the faith to receive.  Even though the tabernacle in the wilderness was under the law, it is a great way to rehearse what Jesus has provided for us in the Spirit.

Rocky J. Malloy

“Hedonic Adaptation” (adapting to pleasure) is a biblical doctrine.  The premise is used both by economists and sociologists to explain why we rapidly and inevitably adapt to almost everything we experience eventually taking it for granted.

If you live in a world in which you experience misery more often than joy, adaptation is very beneficial.  It may be the only thing that gives you the strength and courage to get through the day.  But if you live in a world of plenty, in which sources of joy outnumber sources of misery, then adaptation defeats your attempts to enjoy your good fortune.

Whereas adaptation does nothing to negate improvements in our lives it does much to negate the satisfaction we derive from those improvements.  An example of hedonic adaptation would be walking into an air-conditioned building on a hot humid day.  At first the feeling of the cool dry air is very refreshing and pleasant but within a few moments we no longer notice it because we have adapted.

Pleasure derived from positive experiences does not last.  What’s worse, people seem unable to anticipate the process of adaptation.  The waning of pleasure or enjoyment over time always seems to come as an unpleasant surprise.  That high quality sound system, luxury car and the 10,000 square foot house will not provided the same level pleasure it gave when first experienced.  Once the excitement of the “new thing” wears off our happiness index falls back to where it was before we had the experience.

Faced with this inevitable disappointment, what do people do?  Some people wise up realizing that lasting pleasure is not derived from things.  However most are driven instead to pursue novelty, to seek out new commodities and experiences.  They are captivated by the “grass is greener somewhere else” syndrome.  In time, these new commodities lose their intensity.  Ignorant of adaptation, people get caught up in the chase, a process that has been labeled the “Hedonic Treadmill.”  What follows is a vicious cycle of materialism: obtaining more and more stuff while experiencing less and less joy with each acquisition.

Jesus called it the “deceitfulness of riches” (Matt 13:22).  King Solomon said, “He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase” (Eccl 5:10).

Being aware of adaptation makes us more prudent in our decision-making processes understanding that the “high” we get from new things will not last.  Many times we are still paying the note on things that no longer bring us joy.  That leads to buyer’s remorse: the guilt we experience for trying to find satisfaction in the accumulation of things.

The only antidote to the unconscious process of hedonic adaptation is gratitude!  Expressing gratitude makes us physically healthier, and more optimistic, alert, enthusiastic, and energetic.  Giving thanks makes us feel better about our lives and more likely to achieve personal goals.  By focusing on how much better our lives are now than what could have been, or how bless we really are we can defeat the adaptation process allowing us to truly enjoy life at levels no material increase can provide.

The Bible tells us to give thanks continually and express our gratitude praising God for all He has done for us.  As Americans I believe we should be doubly grateful for the freedoms we enjoy and the liberties we have.

Rocky J. Malloy