We want the benefits but we don’t want the responsibilities. We want the advantages but we don’t want to make the commitments. It’s the same pattern of hypocrisy that repeats itself again and again. “God, give me this but please keep that to yourself.”

Everybody dreams of sex. It’s fun. It’s pleasurable. To many people, it seems superior to all other ways to get satisfaction. It might be a matter of feeling appreciated or perhaps it’s simply about getting physical pleasure. Some people just need to get relief for some kind of pressure. Everybody dreams of sex but what they really want is a person to do them a favour and then buzz off. “No strings, right? ‘Twas nice doing you.” It doesn’t really matter who the person is as long as certain superficial criteria are met. But wasn’t sex originally meant to be an expression of love between two people who were emotionally committed to each other?

Everybody dreams of heaven. It’s gotta be the best place in the universe. All the cool people who were previously dead will be there. Perhaps we’ll be able to bounce from one cloud to another. No more hurts, and I bet the food is delicious. All eternity we shall spend in this place with all our friends. Everybody dreams of heaven but what they really want is God to give them heaven and then buzz off. “Jesus, go back to your shiny castle, will ya?” But what is heaven but the actualization of a life with God? Heaven is the realisation of the relationship with God. It’s not about bringing us back to paradise! Who cares about paradise – what our heavenly Father really miss is holding us in his mighty arms.

We want the benefits but we don’t want the responsibilities. We want the advantages but we don’t want to make the commitments. We want the gifts but we despise the one who gives. We want to live but we want to put the life-giver to death. We love everything but we hate the source of everything’s origin. What we really want is to live in a world without rules.