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Get your own Free Home Page1. Love God = pursue satisfaction in the presence of God's glory.
The greatest passion of a Christian Hedonist is to love God. This includes delighting in Him, being happy in Him, and being satisfied in Him. Put another way, it means seeking satisfaction in the presence of God's glory. This involves the head and heart. We must understand God through the Scriptures, so that we can respond with our hearts in true affections for God. This is worship. Further ways to maximize satisfaction in God are to pray, avoid sin, and pursue personal holiness. When something really delights us, our delight is not complete unless we participate in it somehow or become like it. Thus, true delight in God's holiness, for example, will cause us to seek to be holy ourselves so that we can become like God in his moral character. True delight in God will also result in prayer because it is a means of fellowship with God. Finally, we will want to avoid sin because sin is a barrier to joy in God.
2. Love others = pursue satisfaction in the promotion of God's glory.
If we love God, the Bible tells us that we will also love others. Love for others flows from a true love for God. What does it mean to love others? It means seeking satisfaction in the promotion of God's glory. If you delight in God's glory, you will naturally delight in sharing your delight with others by bringing them into a delight in God and delighting in God with them. When God is delighted in, He is glorified--thus loving others promotes God's glory.
Love is characterized by two main things: Love delights to cause joy in others who do not have it, and love delights to contemplate (share) joy with others who do have it. This means if someone is happy about something, take joy in being happy with them and thus make their happiness your happiness. If someone is in need, take joy in meeting their need. Two commands of the Bible are especially relevant to put this into focus: we must do unto others as we would have them do unto us and we must put others before ourselves. This involves taking initiative in helping others, not just waiting for them to come to you.
John Piper elaborates: "[Jesus] commands, 'As you love yourself, so love your neighbor.' Which means: As you long for food when you are hungry, so long to feed your neighbor when he is hungry. As you long for nice clothes for yourself, so long for nice clothes for your neighbor. As you desire a comfortable place to live, so desire a comfortable place to live for your neighbor. As you seek to be safe and secure from calamity and violence, so seek comfort and security for your neighbor. As you seek friends for yourself, so be a friend to your neighbor. As you work to make good grades yourself, so work to help your neighbor make good grades. As you like to be welcomed into strange company, so welcome your neighbor into strange company. As you would that man would do to you, do so to them.
. . .If you are energetic in pursuing your own happiness, be energetic in pursuing the happiness of your neighbor. If you are creative in pursuing your own happiness, be creative in pursuing the happiness of your neighbor. If you are persevering in pursuing your own happiness, be persevering in pursuing the happiness of your neighbor. In other words, Jesus is not just saying: seek for your neighbor the same things you seek for yourself, but seek them in the same way--the same zeal and energy and creativity and perseverance. Make the measure of your self-seeking the measure of your self-giving. Measure the pursuit of the happiness of others by the pursuit of your own. How do you pursue your own well-being? Pursue your neighbor's well-being that way, too"(John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, pp. 282, 283).
MP
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