Desiring God: Meditations of A Christian Hedonist

Piper writes: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." What a life changing concept!!! And it is Scripturally sound! The activity of our faith in Jesus Christ is wrapped up in being satisfied in all that God promises to be for us in Jesus! Joy is the business of Christianity. Piper's well thought-out and wonderfully argued thesis will change your life. His grasp of God's soveriegnty will put you in awe of God and spark in your soul a desire to get more of God. His extensive quoting of Jonathon Edwards and other great saints, demonstrates this is no new idea. He is grounded on Scripture and God will use this book to ignite a passion in your soul for His glory. Buy it and read it!

piper's message is wonderful and timeless. in pursuing God, we find our utmost pleasure. times may sometimes be hard, yet in God we can all find rest and a life that dwarfs all others in happiness and meaning. that being said, his theology is sloppy at times. however, being a preacher, that is excusable. in short, it's a great book that should be read and cherished by all.

There is a time and a season for everything under the sun. If your faith is joyless and you feel like the walls of duty are closing in on you, this is the book for you. John Piper addresses the issue of doing something for the purpose of duty as apposed to using duty as an action to show your love for someone. C.S Lewis illustrates this clearly in The ScrewTape Letters. When the patient is to be mislead into gaining satisfaction from self-sacrifice not in the fact that his sacrifice was beneficial to the receiver of the sacrifice This deception ultimately leads to pain, bitterness and discontentment. Piper's answer to Screwtape's deception is that we should be moved to action because we take delight in serving God and others, and this is what true worship and love is.
Personally the book became boring to me after the first 150 pages because Piper talks about the same thing over and over and over and over ad nauseam. The things that stuck out to me were, do I delight in serving God? What kind of church do I attend, one that stress Truth and Spirit or do I attend a church that focuses on just truth or just spirit (duty/emotional high).
I must agree with him that joy is an important aspect of the Christian faith and one must evaluate their faith if one never experiences any joy. This book is a good start in learning how to be a joyful Christian.

Desiring God was given to me by a professor while I was in seminary. The book sat on my shelf for quite a while before I actually read it. But, once I began the book, I was amazed. I was challenged and encouraged, and more importantly, the book has had an impact on how I live my life. I was especially affected by the chapters on money and suffering. Desiring God has become a book that I give to friends.

This is one of Piper's most thought-provoking books. He challenges you to look at faith and at the Christian life from a whole new perspective. This is the real deal. If you're looking for something that gives you permission to keep living the way you're living, look elsewhere. piper will challenge you.

By Jeffrey W. Bennett, ISP, author of ISP Certification-The Industrial Security Professional Exam Manual and Under the Lontar Palm

Excellent inspirational book. I used desiring God with The Purpose Driven Life to conduct a decipleship training class. We also try to try to mentor and recruit volunteers for projects that fit their capabilities. Desiring God shows that it is okay to enjoy the service that you provide. You can only enjoy when you are obedient to do what God has inspired you to do and with the gifts, talents and abilities He has given. Isn't it great to know that you can enjoy the service God has called you to do?

Thanks
Jeff

It is a tremendous grace that a friend directed me towards this dear book, and because of it I will never be the same. This book is a jar that has been carefully filled at the fountain of living waters. "Oh taste and see that the Lord is good." I have tasted and seen here...

This book will take you soaring on the winds of the manifold Glories of God. He is the treasure to be ultimately delighted in now and for eternity.

Any resource that helps one to see more clearly that God alone can completely satisfy the heart's infinite thirst is priceless. This book is such a resource and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This book brings the reality of todays living into how the scriptures meant us to be. Author used good reference to scripture for self interpretation. Best part is about marriage and what it really means for husband to be head of household. It was very good if you need marriage counseling from an independent christian source.

Generally speaking, I see no point in giving praise to men. Simply put, we just aren't worth it. Therefore, I will lift up my praises to God and give him all the thanks for this book. He has allowed John Piper to write a terrific book that I believe every christian should read and understand. It will no doubt change your christian perspective and draw you nearer to your Father in heaven. Read your bible first, and Desiring God second. Enjoy!

This book has drastically changed my life. I have been in Christian ministry for 8 years full time. Until John Piper's book came to my attention, I was of the traditional opinion that you must serve God selflessly, i.e. with no regard for your own happiness. And then, if happiness happened to come your way, well, it was icing on the cake. I was miserable. His totally Biblical arguments and irrefutable exegesis convinced me totally. What an AWESOME discovery!! Now, the challenge is to change the way I feel about God and serving him. It is hard to change your mind and feelings at 40.

This is an excellent book and is essential for anyone who strives to be more intimate with God and have more joy in their life. I am buying this book for everyone on my Christmas list! It is concise and easy to read. You don't have to be a biblical scholar to understand it. The truths are simple but can profoundly change your life. Piper backs all his arguments up with Scripture. I recommend this book for everyone! It is a must read!

my new review:
i very much appreciate how this book has blessed so many Christians.

having walked just a bit longer with the Lord, i understand more what i take issue with. ...the issue is not that God does not deserve glory or that we should enjoy God or that we should delight in Him and that this delighting gives Him glory...the issue is that i just don't have the strength, the focus, the desire or the ability to do that !!
i used to think that i could do it (with God's help), but that was my flesh talking. the truth is that i just can't do it. and this book just can't give me enough of a motivation to do it; this book can't open my eyes enough to make it possible for ME to do it. o, your eyes may be opened by the book, but you need something else (Someone Else) to actually live it. ...you actually need to give up trying to live it yourself, in your flesh, and let God live it for you.
Christ is the only One who ever lived a successful Christian life; since He now lives in you, He can do the same thing now.

my old review:
i think the book has something very good to say about finding joy in God. ..that's very important and gets missed so very often.
but piper is thinking too hard. God has very clearly stated what He wants from us above all else: to love Him with ALL our heart, mind, soul and strength. if i love God with all my mind, i will make the perfectly rational decision to value God above all else and will be well pleased with that decision. the same could be said for the heart, soul or strength.
in the past, i have also gotten caught up in a quest to try and go deeper into what my proper motivation for loving God should be - piper does a pretty admirable attempt with that. ...but the motivation to love (properly and truthfully and honestly) comes exclusively from having Christ inside of you; we love simply because we've been changed. to not love is to deny Christ within.
fallen angels know that God has ultimate value and that people have extreme value as well... they know that they should honor God and be fulfilled just by serving Him, but they do not because they have turned away and lack love. we love God simply because Christ loves God and He indwells in us...the same goes for loving people as well. in other words, i love God, i desire God, i serve God just because of who i am inside now that i've been remade in Christ. it is also because of Christ within me that i can be pleased by all that love, desire and service. ...now make no mistake - once the true value of God starts to hit you, you will find new passion to serve and new strength to avoid sin. and once the true value of people hits you, the same will go on that end. but don't try and think to hard about it...this is not what Christians in the middle of kenya or nepal spend their lives pondering.

Piper challenges Christians to really enjoy God. To worship simply for the joy of the experience. To love others and God simply because of the joy that can be received. Using the Apostle Paul, and King David, Piper shows us that joy is one of the central themes of the Scripture...and that it is not wrong to seek joy in our faith and service.

This is the most life-changing book, Bible aside, I have ever read in my whole life. If you are only going to read one book in the next 10 years then I bet of you, read this book. It will ignite your passion for God and drive you to want to study The Bible. Best book ever written that was not divinely inspired by God.

This book will challenge your thinking and change the way you view God, the church and other things that grow mundane in the normal Christian life. He uses a truckload of scripture, so it carries authority, yet he makes the information easy to understand and practical to live by. If you're pursuing a deeper relationship with God, or if you just want to know more about Christian living get this book.

Simply put, this is a must read for Christians and seekers alike. The book is bible saturated and reveals the core of the Gospel - making much of God and making much of our need for joy in Christ. The book is poetic, stirring, and full of theological depth; it will speak to the core of your spirit.

Despite the glowing reviews that this book has received by other readers, I must dare to disagree (It may help to know that I too am an ordained minister and have a Ph.D. in Theology). Piper's book is wonderfully appealing, but not very accurate in it's use of either Scripture or the theology of Jonathan Edwards. Piper's thesis is that we glorify God by enjoying Him forever (a slight twist on the Westminster Shorter Catechism's answer # 1 which states, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."). Piper's use of Scripture borders on irresponsible at many points (he clearly has an agenda in mind when approaching the text), and he badly misunderstands Edwards who would not agree that "and" (which makes the two activities roughly coordinate) should be changed to "by" (which seems to make the two virtually identical). To the point, Piper neglects to mention Edward's other aspects of glorifying God--knowledge and holiness (which I suspect he would somehow try to subsume under enjoy). I am sure many post-modern, hedonistic, Biblically and theologically ignorant, broad Evangelicals find this book spellbinding, but it needs (and so do they) a massive dose of what Luther called the "theology of the cross" and the far more mature exposition (than Piper's) of the Christian life found in Calvin and his successors. Of course, it could have been no other way since Piper ratherly flippantly asserts in his preface that he "does not care too much about the intetions of 17th century theologians". Too bad for him and his readers, for this would have been a much better (richer, deeper, truer) book if he had! Sola Dei Gloria!

This review has Dr. Piper's "Desiring God" book in mind, but I am spreading this post around for those who, like me, feel uneasy with Dr. Piper's main point. I am restricting my review to that because--from what I can tell--it has become central to his whole outlook on God and life. It appears to have metastasized into almost all his writings. He spoke at a plenary session of our denomination and if I remember correctly he said something like, "this is my theology." Here it is:

"What is the chief end of man? To glorify God BY enjoying Him forever." And, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

Dr. Piper teaches that this is the supreme testimony of Scripture regarding glorifying God. He would have us adopt it as the highest priority in our lives. He is saying, in effect, God being glorified in us ultimately rests on whether or not this is happening.

I read this years ago and the more I have thought about it in the light of the life of Christ the more uneasy I have become. But it has taken me years to find words for my uneasiness. Here is my best attempt so far.

My question has been, What does Jesus Himself have to say about glorifying God? Or, more specifically, did He say anything about HOW He personally glorified God? If Dr. Piper's theme is, in truth, at the heart of glorifying God on earth, then we can be sure Jesus certainly would have spoken to it. I cannot believe that He would have left the question open on a matter of such transcendent importance.

What did Jesus say about how He brought glory to God on earth? One reference emerged in my study. He said, in His High Priestly prayer: "I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do." John 17:4, niv. (If I missed a passage please point it out in the comments. I welcome correction.)

Do you read anything in those statements to the effect that the Son of God glorified God primarily through enjoying Him or through being satisfied in God? I have no doubt that Jesus certainly did. But I don't see here or in any aspect of His life and teaching that He made that foundational.

As I see it, my Master brought glory to God by completing His Father's assignment, and so with me as His disciple. I do not doubt that He will give me joy and satisfaction in Him throughout the journey. He has already--far more than I can possibly contain--but if that were the main point in glorifying God, I am convinced that Jesus would have told us explicitly that that is the main point.

Why only a one star review? Because how we glorify God is immeasurable in terms of its significance and impact. We are talking about ultimate reasons that affect everything we do all day long. Like having the right motive in something--if we get that wrong, everything is wrong. Dr. Piper, in my estimation, has substituted in a secondary good for the primary one Jesus revealed in His prayer. And whereas in other matters in life that may not do much damage, with ultimate concerns it ends up being a colossal distraction.

In stark contrast to "Christian Hedonism," consider what Thomas Kelly wrote in his "Testament of Devotion:" "When you are obeying to the uttermost you even forget about yourself."

UPDATE:

I would extrapolate from Dr Piper's motto the following: that the deepest prayer of his life is to forever dwell at the foot of the throne of God lost in wonder, love, and praise––glorifying God as he moves steadily into ever-increasing depths of hedonistic enjoyment of God.

My prayer (and I think that of many others) is to show up on the other side and be immediately informed of something God wants me to do for Him.

Piper's book was shallow, repetitive, and not useful. He also has a painfully bad writing style that was tiring to wade through. He advocates disturbing things like wives always being submissive to their husbands. He warns wives not to be "cocky" in their behavior to their husbands. Repellent, ugly stuff.