Meditations of a Christian Hedonist - Desiring God

Absolutely the best book I've ever read! This booked has helped me to put everything in my life in prospective. Delighting yourself in this book will have you delighting yourself in God and God's word. Must read for all Christians!

I approached this book with some caution, never hearing the term "Christian Hedonism" before. Just the term itself sounds weird, but after reading the first chapter, Piper does a good job of defining it and really helped to correct some of the misconceptions I had. It isn't an easy read, in the sense its written with like a college textbook (I had to read several sections several times to completely understand what was being said). I would definitely recommend it to bible study groups, it will lead to some really good discussions.

Life changing stuff. I will pray that God will grant me the grace to really "own" (internalize) this perspective. I have tasted enough of the joy of His presence to be able to relate to the promise of more. I thought often of those I know who are aquainted with suffering and would wish them to dicover this work. This was my introduction to Piper and his web site. My, what a wealth!

Another great book by John Piper. He is always "right on the money". I purchased this book because I am currently struggling with my faith and walk with Christ and I respect the information that John offers those who are working through struggles in this current life.

Another great book by John Piper. He is always "right on the money". I purchased this book because I am currently struggling with my faith and walk with Christ and I respect the information that John offers those who are working through struggles in this current life.

"We will go far beyond mere happiness in our Christian life, but our true purpose on this earth is obedience and sanctification, not personal gratification." Contrast this statement from Charles Colson's Lies That Go Unchallenged in Popular Culture with Piper's statement that "The pursuit of pleasure is not optional. It is essential."

I reject the concept of Christian hedonism which is most likely the reason why I didn't get very far with this book. It represents popular culture's obsession with ourselves and our personal satisfaction and fulfillment. I appreciate that Piper is suggesting that we should seek to find this only in God but I believe it is the wrong focus in the first place.

I actually gave up on the book after the first few chapters. I read it because Christians all around me on Logos Hope (a missionary ship) were raving about it and saying how great it was. After a few chapters, I came across a description of a "Christian hedonist." I had never heard the term used before. The author suggests we should all be aiming for this higher state and that unless we reach it we are not fulfilling God's true potential for us. How do we reach it? By aiming to be 100% satisfied personally in our Christian walk. I found this concept difficult...is OUR OWN personal satisfaction something we should really have as our ultimate goal?...That seems a bit selfish. What about when we don't feel satisfied ....does that mean we are not fulfilling God's potential for us? Does it mean we aren't saved? Should we base anything on how we feel on a daily basis? It is surely dangerous to rely on certain feelings in connection with our salvation--our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked and our feelings subjective and changeable.

What is the evidence that we love/desire God "If you love me, you will OBEY my commands" (John 14 vs 15.) The Bible doesn't give other requirements and I don't believe Christian hedonism is a healthy pursuit. I stopped reading the book as it could lead to the conclusion that if one doesn't have certain experiences they are not saved, which is clearly wrong thinking.

I would warn Christian readers to be careful with this book...

The motto of John Piper’s ministry could be “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” This is his definition of Christian hedonism.

In essence, Desiring God is about being satisfied in God; making God our treasure. I think it is easy for us, as Evangelical Christians, to recite a prayer and believe that we have come to a type of saving faith. This is antithetical to Christian Hedonism: our desire to glorify God, according to Piper, stems from the joy we find in Him. Joy is a consistent theme for the Christian Hedonist. Hedonism defined means “the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence.” But to the Christian Hedonist, joy is a result of giving God glory. Dr. Piper sets up his thesis by quoting the famous Westminster Catechism phrase, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” He says that enjoying Him and giving Him glory are the same thing. Therefore, Christian Hedonism (remember: the pursuit of pleasure) is doing things simply because you have the pleasure of giving God glory. The thought here is that sometimes Christians are inundated with denial. This denial makes us sometimes begrudgingly worship and do moral things to appease God. But he says that there is a better way: happiness. And that is what this book is about. Perhaps I can illustrate this with a quotation:

All those years I had been trying to suppress my tremendous longing for happiness so I could honestly praise God out of some “higher,” less selfish motive. But now it started to dawn on me that this persistent and undeniable yearning for happiness was not to be suppressed, but to be glutted—on God! The growing conviction that praise should be motivated solely by the happiness we find in God seemed less and less strange (Piper, 21).

Dr. Piper then sets out to defend this thesis in the following chapters: The Foundation of Christian Hedonism; Conversion; Worship; Love; Scripture; Prayer; Money; Marriage; Missions; and Suffering.

By far, I believe the two most powerful chapters are the last two: missions and suffering. How can we take pleasure in our sufferings? How can we take pleasure in missions where 2 billion people (when the book was written at least) have not heard the Gospel, let alone know who Jesus is? You’ll have to read the book if you want to know the answers. But I will say this: I believe that Evangelical America has vastly underestimated the importance of frontier missions in the 21st century. This book puts a desire in my heart to make my joy “full” by pursuing world’s missions. Dr. Piper says, “In fact, in all my reading outside the Bible over the past fifteen years, the greatest source of affirmation for my emerging Christian Hedonism has been from missionary literature, especially biographies. And those who have suffered most seem to state the truth most unashamedly” (Piper, 224). From his mouth, it seems that those who 1) sacrifice, and 2) are involved in missions, have the least problem with making their joy “full.” A message we desperately need to hear in the solace and comfortability of American Evangelicalism.

Please read this book.

Thousands of books are published every year but among those thousands very few will be a remembered after a year of their publishing, and even fewer still will be remembered twenty or thirty years after its first publishing. Desiring God by Dr. John Piper is a book that has been held in high regard by many Christians for a very long time. I first read Desiring God when I was a teenager and read it again several years later. After many years of reading Desiring God I was excited when last year the Revised Edition of Desiring God came out.

Desiring God has been a paradigm shifting book. By that I mean that it has made a deep impact on how I live out the Christian life. Piper in this book teaches that there is no need to choose between duty and delight in the Christian life. Desiring God teaches that for followers of Jesus, delight is the duty, because Christ is most magnified in His people when they are most satisfied in Him. Piper time and time again draws his readers backs to the Scripture by showing why pursuing maximum joy is essential to glorifying God. By going into the implications this has on conversion, worship, love, Scripture, prayer, money, marriage, missions and suffering he convincingly demonstrates the integrated nature of what a Christian life looks like when Christ is most magnified in His people when they are most satisfied in Him.

Desiring God will turn your Christian life upside-down by giving you a vision of the glory of God and the beauty of Jesus Chris. I recommend you read Desiring God but be prepared to be confronted and challenged with the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Title: Desiring God
Author: John Piper
Publisher: Multnomah Books(2011)
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the Multnomah Books. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

So rich. So thorough. So challenging. So not mainstream. John Piper has been used by God in such a wonderful and encouraging way for the growth of the church in our day and this flagship work Desiring God is his definitive work. As with most things in our culture, terms and concepts that were originally good or that had a good use tend to fall on hard times and become only known by their abuses or negative associations. This would be the case with the concept of hedonism. If thought of as only the secular type that is driven by the sinful nature of man, hedonism is truly the evil most of us think of when we hear the term. A fulfilling of our every whim, our carnal cravings, our unscrupulous desires which lead us ultimately to destruction. However, the wrong focus and abuse of a thing does not negate its proper use. Hedonism is, at it's core, a finding pleasure in something. If our desire for pleasure is laser focused on That which is the ultimate good, then this reveals there to be a good side to the term hedonism, a Christian hedonism, as Piper has coined it. This is what Desiring God is all about. Finding our pleasure, fulfilling our every longing in the One who created us to do just that; worship Him and enjoy Him forever.

After introducing us to the concept of Christian hedonism, Piper then spends chapter after chapter unpacking the implications and far reaching applications of this way of thinking. Instead of pitting obedience to God against seeking our own pleasure, Piper steps out on a ledge to explain that these two paradoxical concepts or actions are actually complementary to one another. We fully obey God when we seek our own pleasure - the ultimate pleasure - in Him. This concept has rocked the modern Christian world and even created some disagreement to Piper's work. But the exposition of the Scriptures that Piper walks his readers through in this book backs up his thesis.

I highly recommend this book to anyone. If you are intimidated by its length, a great primer to Desiring God is Piper's smaller work called The Dangerous Duty of Delight. Also, a great follow up to Desiring God is Piper's When I Don't Desire God. 

You pretty much can't go wrong reading a Piper book. You'll be instructed, encouraged and challenged by the Word. He isn't perfect, but the Word is.

E-book received from Blogging for Books in exchange for a free, unbiased review.

I think Piper's conclusions are right. This is the classic work that made so many young Christians, like myself, decide to refer to themselves as Christian hedonists. If you are serious about finding everlasting joy, you must seek Jesus Christ above all other things. This book as left an indelible mark upon my soul of how and why to make that happen. I recommend it to everyone. Even better than desiring to read this book, is a desire for the God it is a testament of. To that end, use this book to draw nearer to Him. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

Piper's heart is in the right place, and conclusions are not inaccurate...however several critical flaws in his fundamental arguments, flaws easily pointed out by anyone whose taken either Theology or Psychology 101 at any point in their life, weaken the overall structure of this book to the point that is is generally as much an argument against his(again actually correct!) position as it is for that position. By the time I finished the first three chapters I was half convinced that Piper believes God to be a self-absorbed narcissist. And sadly I was COMPLETELY convinced that that is what he thinks of humanity as a whole.