Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist

by John Piper

Scripture reveals that the great business of life is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. In this paradigm-shattering classic, newly revised and expanded, John Piper reveals that the debate between duty and delight doesn't truly exist: Delight is our duty. Readers will embark on a dramatically different and joyful experience of their faith

The pursuit of pleasure is not optional. It is essential. The pursuit of pleasure is not optional. It is essential.

Scripture reveals that the great business of life is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. In this paradigm-shattering work, John Piper reveals that the debate between duty and delight doesn’t truly exist: Delight isis our duty. Join him as he unveils stunning, life-impacting truths you saw in the Bible but never dared to believe.

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Paperback, 369 pages

Published April 17th 2003 by Multnomah Books (first published 1986)

tags: theology, spirituality, faith, christianity, christian non fiction, religion, nonfiction, christian living, discipleship, christian

Book Quotes

“The wisdom of God devised a way for the love of God to deliver sinners from the wrath of God while not compromising the righteousness of God.”

― John Piper

topics: Christianity

“God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many professing Christians have been deceived by this doctrine is how little they give and how much they own. God has prospered them. And by an almost irresistible law of consumer culture (baptized by a doctrine of health, wealth, and prosperity) they have bought bigger (and more) houses, newer (and more) cars, fancier (and more) clothes, better (and more) meat, and all manner of trinkets and gadgets and containers and devices and equipment to make life more fun. They will object: Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper his people? Indeed! God increases our yield, so that by giving we can prove our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man's business so that he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that 17,000 unreached people can be reached with the gospel. He prospers the business so that 12 percent of the world's population can move a step back from the precipice of starvation.”

― John Piper

topics: Caring, Compassion, Evangelism, Giving, Gospel, Greed, Hunger, Need, Prosperity, Sharing, Starvation, Stewardship

“The pursuit of joy in God is not optional. It is not an “extra” that a person might grow into after he comes to faith. It is not simply a way to “enhance” your walk with the Lord. Until your heart has hit upon this pursuit, your “faith” cannot please God. It is not saving faith. Saving faith is the confidence that if you sell all you have and forsake all sinful pleasures, the hidden treasure of holy joy will satisfy your deepest desires. Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that He is desirable. It is the confidence that He will come through with His promises and that what He promises is more to be desired than all the world.”

― John Piper

topics: Encouragement, Everything, Freedom, Joy, Life, Peace, Precious, Prize, Purity, Treasure, Wholeness

“A prayerless Christian is like a bus driver trying alone to push his bus out of a rut because he doesn't know Clark Kent is on board.”

― John Piper

topics: Christianity, Jesus, Simile

“Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that He will provide the help we need. Prayer humbles us as needy and exalts God as wealthy”

― John Piper

topics: Christianity, Prayer

“I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God.”

― John Piper

topics: Desiring, God, John Piper, Satisfaction, Sin

“God is calling us to live for the sake of Christ and to do that through suffering. Christ chose suffering; it didn’t just happen to Him. He chose it as the way to create and perfect the church. Now He calls us to choose suffering. That is, He calls us to take up our cross and follow Him on the Calvary road and deny ourselves and make sacrifices for the sake of ministering to the church and presenting His sufferings to the world.”

― John Piper

topics: Evangelism, Love, Mission, Missionary, Missions

“Faith is born and sustained by the Word of God, and out of faith grows the flower of joy.”

― John Piper

topics: Bible, Growth, Life, Word

“God is most glorified when you are most satisfied in Him.”

― John Piper

topics: God S Glory

“But to enjoy him we must know him. Seeing is savoring. If he remains a blurry, vague fog, we may be intrigued for a season. But we will not be stunned with joy, as when the fog clears and you find yourself on the brink of some vast precipice.”

― John Piper

topics: Joy, Knowing God

“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5–6)”

― John Piper

topics: Confidence, Jesus, Peace, Rock

“Minimizing the importance of transformed feelings makes Christian conversion less supernatural and less radical. It is humanly manageable to make decisions of the will for Christ. No supernatural power is required to pray prayers, sign cards, walk aisles, or even stop sleeping around. Those are good. They just don’t prove that anything spiritual has happened. Christian conversion, on the other hand, is a supernatural, radical thing. The heart is changed. And the evidence of it is not just new decisions, but new affections, new feelings.”

― John Piper

topics: Affections, Conversion, Emotions, Salvation

“Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper His people? Indeed! God increases our yield so that by giving we can prove that our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man’s business so he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that thousands of unreached peoples can be reached with the gospel.”

― John Piper

topics: Freedom, Giving, Mission, Missionary, Money, Wealth

“God has made us to be conduits of his grace. The danger is in thinking the conduit should be lined with gold. It shouldn't. Copper will do.”

― John Piper

topics: Copper, Gold, Grace, Lifestyle, Stewardship

“...all the evils in the world come not because our desires for happiness are too strong, but because they are so weak that we settle for fleeting pleasures that do not satisfy our deepest souls, but in the end destroy them. The root of all evil is that we are the kind of people who settle for the love of money instead of the love of God (1 Timothy 6:10).”

― John Piper

“On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought.”

― John Piper

“...childlike wonder and awe have died. The scenery and poetry and music of the majesty of God have dried up like a forgotten peach at the back of the refrigerator.”

― John Piper

topics: Awesome, Joy, Simile, Similes, Worship

“Knowledge about Him will not do. Work for Him will not do. We must have personal, vital fellowship with Him; otherwise, Christianity becomes a joyless burden.”

― John Piper

“Christian Hedonism is a philosophy of life built on the following five convictions: The longing to be happy is a universal human experience, and it is good, not sinful. We should never try to deny or resist our longing to be happy, as though it were a bad impulse. Instead, we should seek to intensify this longing and nourish it with whatever will provide the deepest and most enduring satisfaction. 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. Or, to put it positively: The pursuit of pleasure is a necessary part of all worship and virtue. That is: The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.”

― John Piper

“Less extreme is the simple costliness in time and convenience and money and effort to replace excessive and addictive leisure with acts of servant love.”

― John Piper

John Piper

John Piper (1946 - Present)

is a Calvinistic Baptist Christian preacher and author currently serving as Pastor for Preaching and Vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His books include ECPA Christian Book Award winners Spectacular Sins, What Jesus Demands from the World, Pierced by the Word, and God's Passion for His Glory, and bestsellers Don't Waste Your Life and The Passion of Jesus Christ. The evangelical organization Desiring God is named for his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (1986).

In 1980, after what he described as an "irresistible call of the Lord to preach", Piper became Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he has been ministering ever since. Piper hit the evangelical scene after the publication of his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (1986) and has continued to publish dozens of other books further articulating this theological perspective. In 1994, he founded Desiring God Ministries, which provides all of Piper's sermons and articles from the past three decades, and most of his books online free of charge, as well as offering for sale books, CDs, and DVDs and regularly hosting conferences.

John Stephen Piper is a Reformed and Baptist theologian, preacher, and author, currently serving as Pastor for Preaching and Vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is the author of numerous books.

Piper's motto in ministry, preaching, and teaching is: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." He calls those who live out this motto Christian Hedonists. Piper places a heavy emphasis on the objective and absolute nature of truth and is confident in the Christian's ability to grasp that truth through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
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