John Piper's Desiring God ministy
Portion of an interview about John Piper's Desiring God ministry
God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
It follows from this that joy is not simply icing on the cake. Rather, we ought to seek joy. We ought to seek joy. This is what the Scriptures command (Psalm 37:4; Matthew 6:21; Philippians 4:4; Psalm 97:12) and model (Philippians 3:8; Psalm 43:4; Hebrews 12:2). Yet so often the idea has crept into the church that somehow it is bad to want to be happy. That desiring to be happy is sinful.
But the problem with the human race is not that we want to be happy. The problem is that we seek happiness in the wrong things-in things outside of God (see, for example, Jeremiah 2:13). And the great irony here is that this results in less satisfaction.
It results in less satisfaction because those things ultimately cannot satisfy. The idea is often out there that the most exciting life and the greatest happiness comes from following the values of the world—either for outright sin or domesticated comfort—and that if you become a Christian you must give up the desire to be happy and perhaps even settle for a boring life.
But this is exactly backwards.
The greatest satisfaction is in God, not outside of God. When we aim for the joy that the world offers, we are settling for less, not more. C.S. Lewis put it this way: “The problem is not that our desires are too strong , but too weak.” Then he continues: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the sand because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”
God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
It follows from this that joy is not simply icing on the cake. Rather, we ought to seek joy. We ought to seek joy. This is what the Scriptures command (Psalm 37:4; Matthew 6:21; Philippians 4:4; Psalm 97:12) and model (Philippians 3:8; Psalm 43:4; Hebrews 12:2). Yet so often the idea has crept into the church that somehow it is bad to want to be happy. That desiring to be happy is sinful.
But the problem with the human race is not that we want to be happy. The problem is that we seek happiness in the wrong things-in things outside of God (see, for example, Jeremiah 2:13). And the great irony here is that this results in less satisfaction.
It results in less satisfaction because those things ultimately cannot satisfy. The idea is often out there that the most exciting life and the greatest happiness comes from following the values of the world—either for outright sin or domesticated comfort—and that if you become a Christian you must give up the desire to be happy and perhaps even settle for a boring life.
But this is exactly backwards.
The greatest satisfaction is in God, not outside of God. When we aim for the joy that the world offers, we are settling for less, not more. C.S. Lewis put it this way: “The problem is not that our desires are too strong , but too weak.” Then he continues: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the sand because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”
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