SIN ACCELERATES PLEASURE BUT MORTGAGES THE FUTURE

A Story: The Borrowed Joy of a Young Woman

Her name was Oye-Ije-Ojoo.

She was vibrant, intelligent, and deeply alive. In her early twenties, Oye-Ije-Ojoo believed life was meant to be felt quickly. She laughed loudly, loved intensely, and lived impulsively. To her, enjoyment was proof of freedom. Commitment felt like a cage; restraint sounded old-fashioned. Pleasure, she believed, should never be delayed.

“It’s my life,” she often said. “I deserve to enjoy it.”

What began as curiosity slowly became a pattern. One relationship overlapped another. Emotional attachment faded, replaced by momentary thrills. Warnings from friends sounded judgmental. Counsel from elders felt outdated. In her own mind, she wasn’t reckless, just modern, expressive, and alive.

Years passed quietly.

Then came the cough that refused to leave. The unexplained weight loss. The constant fatigue. Finally came the verdict she never imagined would bear her name: HIV positive.

At first, she denied it. Then she resisted it. Later, fear overtook her. In her final months, lying on a hospital bed with shallow breaths and hollow eyes, Oye-Ije-Ojoo whispered words that still echo:

“I thought pleasure was free. I didn’t know it was a loan.”

She did not die because she desired death, but because she never knew that some pleasures charge interest.

This is the tragedy of sin:
It never announces its final cost at the point of entry.

The Trap of Immediate Gratification

Sin is rarely ugly at the beginning. It arrives polished, attractive, and convincing. It promises joy now, relief now, excitement now. It whispers, “Why wait?” and ridicules patience as weakness.

Human desire for pleasure is natural. Pleasure itself is not evil. But when pleasure is separated from restraint, wisdom, and order, it becomes dangerous.

Sin is pleasure without patience.
Desire without direction.
Enjoyment without foresight.

A life ruled by impulse eventually becomes a life ruled by regret. When tomorrow is ignored, today becomes a tyrant. Sin accelerates satisfaction by stealing time, it pulls tomorrow’s pain into today’s excitement.

What feels like freedom is often nothing more than unpaid debt.

The Illusion of Happiness Borrowed From Tomorrow

Sin creates happiness that does not last. It stimulates quickly but empties slowly. What excites today often disappoints tomorrow.

Pleasure rises fast. Fulfillment grows slowly.

When a person repeatedly chooses excitement over depth, the heart becomes restless. The same experiences that once thrilled begin to feel ordinary, demanding more risk, more secrecy, and more compromise.

This is how bondage begins, not with suffering, but with enjoyment.

The future is quietly pawned while the present is being entertained.

Blindness of the Heart

Sin does not only affect actions; it affects vision. It dulls awareness, weakens restraint, and numbs the inner voice that warns of danger.

“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
Proverbs 14:12 (KJV)

Sin convinces people they are exceptions. Others may fall, but not me. Consequences feel distant and theoretical, until they become personal.

Oye-Ije-Ojoo never imagined herself counting breaths on a hospital bed. She imagined weddings, travels, achievements, and laughter. Sin did not show her the ending, it only showed her selected highlights.

That is deception: seeing the pleasure but not the price.

When the Future Becomes Collateral

To mortgage something is to enjoy it now while surrendering its future value. Sin operates the same way.

Health is traded for thrill.
Reputation is traded for attention.
Trust is traded for secrecy.
Destiny is traded for desire.

Loss rarely happens suddenly. It accumulates quietly. The future always arrives, and it always comes with receipts.

Many lives are not destroyed by one dramatic failure, but by small indulgences repeated until tomorrow is drained.

The Hidden Cost Sin Never Shows

Sin never presents the full invoice. It advertises pleasure and conceals consequence. It promises escape but delivers captivity.

If the full price were shown upfront, broken families, diseases, regret, shame, lost years, few would agree to the transaction.

Wisdom pauses to ask:

“What will this cost me later?”

Maturity is not measured by how something feels now, but by who it is shaping you to become.

Truth Spoken With Compassion

This message is not meant to condemn, but to awaken. Many carrying heavy consequences today are not monsters, they were lonely, wounded, pressured, misled, or uninformed.

Sin often feeds on emotional hunger.

Yet consequences do not cancel mercy. While sin mortgages the future, grace can redeem it. God restores what people pawn away when they turn back to Him.

“Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”
Romans 5:20 (KJV)

The Strength of Delayed Joy

Wisdom understands timing. The strongest lives are built by people who can say no in the moment to say yes to a better future.

Self-control is not loss, it is investment.

What you resist today often becomes what preserves you tomorrow. Discipline guards the future; indulgence consumes it.

A Call to Conscious Living

Life is too valuable to be lived on impulse. Every choice plants a seed. Every habit shapes a destination.

The question is not whether pleasure exists, but whether it aligns with purpose.

Do not borrow joy at the cost of destiny.
Do not trade a moment for a lifetime.
Do not mortgage tomorrow for applause today.

Closing Reflection

Oye-Ije-Ojoo’s story is not only a warning, it is a mirror. Many are alive physically but slowly dying in other ways: inwardly, morally, quietly.

Sin accelerates pleasure, but the interest rate is cruel.

Wisdom chooses joy that lasts.
Grace restores those who return.
And the future is safest in the hands of restraint, truth, and God.