Desiring God // the review

The book was really long and really good. That’s my review. Kidding. Although, for as much as I underlined, I won’t be dropping too many quotes here. There were just too many. But this book is battling with “The Divine Conspiracy” for the most influential book that I have ever read.

As far as I’m concerned, “Desiring God” is Piper’s seminal work. Everything else seems to be based off of his beliefs in Christian Hedonism. So, based on what’s been written so far, let’s see where this post goes.

The chief end of man is glorify God by enjoying Him forever.

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

These two phrases are the emphasis of the entire work in some form or fashion. Our end goal in life is to glorify God, and Piper (as well as the catechism that he borrows the first quote from presses the belief that ultimately that end is achieved in our enjoyment of God. This leads to Christian Hedonism. Certainly, many have an immediate knee-jerk reaction to the pairing of those two words as would I have before reading the book. I’d explain it, but it took Piper nearly 400 pages and a ton of scripture so you can just go ahead and bet I’m not going to try here in 500 words or less. Go read the book.

But the first quote is supported fully by the proclamation that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. What I’ve noticed after reading this work is that I am free to seek enjoyment in what I do based on Scripture. There is really no mandate to be found that says I should be sullen or that I should be sad in what I’m doing, but to the contrary, it all points to this fact that I should be satisfied in the glory of God. Even now, this sounds confusing, but its only because these words are just beginning to take root. Go read the book.

What I appreciate the most is that “Desiring God” takes a high view of the God head and presses forward God’s sovereignty over and above all things. God is after His own glory in everything. No matter what, ultimately He is seeking the pressing forward of His name and His renown and His goodness and His sovereignty. Piper never lets that slip from our view, and when we recognize and see that God wants us to receive our own satisfaction in pressing forward this same end, then we can properly see our own role and take pleasure in knowing that we are pressing forward the ultimate goal that He has always been moving towards.

I don’t even know what all I just wrote. Just go read the book. It’s amazing.