Christian Hedonism

A couple times when I was talking with David, the term "Christian Hedonism" (along with John Piper who coined the term) came up. I finally took a cursory look myself at the concept tonight.

John Piper's short and sweet summary is that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. That didn't help me a whole lot, but these did:

"Obeying God is the only route to final and lasting happiness."

"Don't do good deeds for worldly advantage; rather do them for spiritual, heavenly benefits."

That last one just summed up something that has been on my mind as of late, especially after watching one of Duncan's talks on storing up your treasure in heaven. I was wrestling lately with these two approaches to doing good deeds: 1) do good deeds solely to please God without thinking about any future heavenly reward or 2) do good deeds because you're seeking to build up your treasure in heaven. Piper answers this very clearly for me, showing that we are in fact commanded to do #2.

I have yet to read Piper's book (Desiring God) or explore the Bible verses he quotes myself, but this was just the answer to the big question running around in my head tonight -- yes it is definitely okay to seek opportunity to build up my treasure in heaven and find joy in it -- in fact, that's what we're supposed to do!

My big problem now is working on finding the joy more and more often, rather than taking a more duty-driven approach; I suspect it will be easier now. :-)

Here is the great article about Christian Hedonism is:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByDate/2006/1797_We_Want_You_to_Be_a_Christian_Hedonist/