Desiring
God by John Piper
John
Piper delivers
us with another mind-expanding and heart deepening
work in Desiring God. Only Piper could
invent a new term like Christian Hedonist and
leave us embracing the term when he is finished.
For
too long, classic Christianity has been equated with
sour, dull, and wooden doctrine. As Phil Johnson puts
it on his web site, it is all just Theology
from a Bunch of Dead Guys. John Piper wants us
to see that the Christian life is meant by God to
be the source of all true joy and happiness.
Building
on the old catechism, the chief end of man is to glorify
God and to enjoy Him forever, Piper expounds throughout
his work on the following principles:
The
longing to be happy is a universal human experience,
and is good, not sinful.
We
should never try to deny or resist our longing to
be happy, and though it were a bad impulse ...
The
deepest and most enduring happiness is found only
in God. Not from God, but in God.
The
happiness we find in God reaches its consummation
when it is shared with others in the manifold ways
of love.
To
the extent that we try to abandon the pursuit of our
own pleasure, we fail to honor God and love people.
Desiring
God is one of those books that is bound to
be misquoted and taken out of context. It certainly
won't leave your neutral on its contents. Don't read
it when you are in a hurry! Take a day off; read the
whole thing with your Bible and heart open; and take
a vacation enjoying the pleasures of knowing God.
Desiring
God (Multnomah Books, 1986,99). 357 pages.
John
Piper is the pastor of the Bethlehem Baptist Church
in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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Read
Desiring God On-Line
Both
the Westminster Catechism and the Heidelberg Catechism
begin with a concern for man's enjoyment of God, or
his quest to "live and die happily." (p.
22)
Children
cannot enjoy the fellowship of their father
if he is unhappy. Therefore the foundation of Christian
hedonism is the happiness of God. But the foundation
of the happiness of God is the sovereignty of God ...
If God were not sovereign, if the world he made were
out of control, frustrating his design again and again
- God would not be happy. Just as our joy is based on
the promise that God is strong enough and wise enough
to make all things work together for our good, so God's
joy is based on that same sovereign control; He makes
all things work together for his glory." (p.
35)
We
praise what we enjoy because the delight
is incomplete until it is expressed in praise. If we
were not allowed to speak of what we value, and celebrate
what we love, and praise what we admire, our joy would
not be full! (p. 49)
Christianity
has become the grinding
out of general doctrinal laws from collections of biblical
facts. But childlike wonder and awe have died. The scenery
and poetry and music of the majesty of God have dried
up like a forgotten peach in the back of the refrigerator.
(p. 89)
When
we are distracted
by the world and our hearts give way to selfishness,
we remember that God alone can satisfy, and we repent
and love His grace the more. (p. 285)
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