Skip to main content

Desiring God by John Piper


In the introduction of “Desiring God,” John Piper explains how he became Christian Hedonist.  He gives five reasons in how he came to the conclusion that “it is unbiblical and arrogant to try to worship God for any other reason than the pleasure to be had in Him” (18).  Which Piper says that is what Christian Hedonist is all about.  

Five reason in why John Piper became a Christian Hedonist:

First:  “During my first quarter in seminary, I was introduced to the argument for Christian Hedonism and one of its great exponents, Blaise Pascal”  (19).  

Second:  “I had grown to love the work of C.S. Lewis in college.  But not until later did I buy the sermon called ‘The Weight of Glory.’  The first page of that sermon is one of the most influential pages of literature I have ever read”  (19).

Third:  “The third insight was there in Lewis’s sermon, but Pascal made it more explicit” (18).

Fourth:  “The next insight came again from C.S. Lewis, but this time from his Reflections on the Psalms.  Chapter 9 of Lewis’s book bears the modest title ‘A Word about Praise.’  In my experience it has been the word about praise—the best word on the nature of praise I have ever read.”  (21)

Fifth:  “Then I turned to the Psalms for myself and found the language of Hedonism everywhere.  The quest for pleasure was not even optional, but commanded:  ‘Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart”
(Psalm 37:4).  


The point of life as John Piper says is: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever” (17).  

That raises some questions, what do we live for?
Is it to have as much satisfaction any way we can?

As much as I can think and reason, there is no point of life that is apart from knowing God and that he created this world.  People could offer few suggestions, but is that really why I (as a humane) exist in the first place?  I live that’s a fact, so do you (since you are reading this), but can there be a clear understanding in why we live on this planet? 
My answer: God created this world, the world that we can’t control or protect, the media speaks for it self.  And if a person doesn’t live for the glory of God, and enjoys Him as he lives, then he (the human) is missing the big picture, the point of life.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scripture

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures ,  that he was buried , that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,   and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.   Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.   Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.   For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.   But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.   Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.  (1 Corinthians 15:3)
1 comment
Read more

The Last Moments of Christopher Hitchens life

Christopher Hitchens is one of the leading atheist of our times, they call it the new atheism now.  He also is the author of a book, “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” that was just recently released; heavily opposing religion and any idea that God exist.  But right now Mr Hitchens is in his last stages of the esophageal cancer.  The New Your Time describes his last moments of life like this: “Some of these articles were written with the full consciousness that they might be my very last. Sobering in one way and exhilarating in another, this practice can obviously never become perfected.”  Another words, Hitchens has little time left. Smoking and drinking was something that Hitchens needed to quit, life was more important then the pleasures of these habits, not mentioning that he had a feeding tube installed since June.  He had power in articulating his worldview to others, the ideas, but were these thoughts the reality of our world? You...
2 comments
Read more

Why Job DID NOT cursed God?

http://www.skybluevaping.co.za/image/data/journal/1383-1.jpg The tone of the conversation was different when Satan appeared before God second time. Not because Satan repented or agreed with God, but because his hypothesis fell short.  Satan just destroyed Jobs wealth and his children (seven sons and three daughters) using evil men, fire, and wind arguing that this was the reason why Job served God in the first place. Job response to his lost was not a cursing God attitude but a humble worship.  “ Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return.  The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord ” (Job 1:20).    When Satan appears before God second time, God asked him the same question as he did in the first conversation,  "' Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and ...
1 comment
Read more