Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist [Paperback]

Includes 5 helpful appendices on topics such as: ‘Is the Bible a reliable guide to lasting joy?’, ‘Is God less glorious because he ordained that evil be?’ (Jonathan Edwards on the divine decrees) and ‘How then shall we fight for joy?’

‘Mind-hammering and heart-warming, 'Desiring God' ignites a passion for God that would set the world ablaze if it were the norm and not the exception today.’
- Os Guinness, author of 'Time for Truth'

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 for ever. In this paradigm-shattering work, John Piper reveals that the debate between duty and delight doesn’t truly exist: delight is our duty. Join him as he stuns you again and again with life-impacting truths you saw in the Bible, but never dared to believe.

‘… a modern manual of true spirituality.’
- R. C. Sproul

‘…a soul-stirring celebration of the pleasures of knowing God … a must-read for every Christian, and a feast for the spiritually hungry.’
- John MacArthur

‘The communion of a longing soul and a satisfying Christ is at the center of God’s plan. Piper makes this overlooked, contradicted, trivialized and sentimentalized message clear and compelling. Desiring God is a classic – now it’s even richer.’
- Larry Crabb

‘The healthy biblical realism of this study in Christian motivation comes as a breath of fresh air. Jonathan Edwards, whose ghost walks through most of Piper’s pages, would be delighted with his disciple.’
- J. I. Packer

This is a serious book about being happy in God. It’s about happiness because that is what our Creator commands: "Delight yourself in the LORD" (Psalm 37:4). And it is serious because, as Jeremy Taylor said, "God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy."

The heroes of this book are Jesus Christ, who "endured the cross for the joy that was set before him"; and St. Paul, who was "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing"; and Jonathan Edwards, who deeply savoured the sweet sovereignty of God; and C. S. Lewis, who knew that the Lord "finds our desires not too strong but too weak"; and all the missionaries who have left everything for Christ and in the end said, "I never made a sacrifice."

During these seventeen years since 'Desiring God' first appeared, I have been testing it and applying its vision in connection with more of life and ministry and God. The more I do so, the more persuaded I become that it will bear all the weight I can put on it. The more I reflect and the more I minister and the more I live, the more all-encompassing the vision of God and life in this book becomes.

The older I get, the more I am persuaded that Nehemiah 8:10 is crucial for living and dying well: "The joy of the LORD is your strength." As we grow older and our bodies weaken, we must learn from the Puritan pastor Richard Baxter (who died in 1691) to redouble our efforts to find strength from spiritual joy, not natural supplies. He prayed, "May the Living God, who is the portion and rest of the saints, make these our carnal minds so spiritual, and our earthly hearts so heavenly, that loving him, and delighting in him, may be the work of our lives." When delighting in God is the work of our lives (which I call Christian Hedonism), there will be an inner strength for ministries of love to the very end.

J. I. Packer described this dynamic in Baxter’s life: "The hope of heaven brought him joy, and joy brought him strength, and so, like John Calvin before him and George Whitefield after him (two verifiable examples) and, it would seem, like the apostle Paul himself…he was astoundingly enabled to labour on, accomplishing more than would ever have seemed possible in a single lifetime."

But not only does the pursuit of joy in God give strength to endure; it is the key to breaking the power of sin on our way to heaven. Matthew Henry, another Puritan pastor, put it like this: "The joy of the Lord will arm us against the assaults of our spiritual enemies and put our mouths out of taste for those pleasures with which the tempter baits his hooks."

This is the great business of life—to "put our mouths out of taste for those pleasures with which the tempter baits his hooks." 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. One of the reasons this book is still "working" after seventeen years is that this truth simply does not and will not change. God remains gloriously all-satisfying. The human heart remains a ceaseless factory of desires. Sin remains powerfully and suicidally appealing. The battle remains: Where will we drink? Where will we feast? Therefore, Desiring God is still a compelling and urgent message: Feast on God.