Christian Hedonism: Three Timeless Truths

“In the morning when I rise, give me Jesus.” Afro-American Spiritual

 “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”  Psalm 73:25,26

 “For me, to life is Christ, and to die is gain.” The Apostle Paul in Philippians 1:21

 John Piper coined the term, Christian Hedonism in 1986, but there’s nothing new about the concept:

1. Christian Hedonism is seeking your greatest joy in the presence of God Himself.

Piper famously said that “God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him.”

Satisfied in Him.  Did you catch that?

The Levites didn’t get big tracts of land; they got God. Like the Levites, we get God.  One day we’ll inherit the earth; for now, we get God.

David pictured his soul as an empty cup which could only be filled by God, when he said:

“Bring joy to your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.” Psalm 86:4

 The Apostle Paul’s contribution to the subject was his wonderful concept of rejoicing in the Lord – a practice enjoined all over the Book of Psalms before it was scattered throughout the letter to the Philippians.

For forty-nine years I’ve been working on understanding that phrase, as well as the testimony, “For me, to live is Christ.” I believe Paul meant those words in the same way as the person who says, “I live for skiing” or “Football is my life” or “I live for ice cream.” Paul was obsessed with Christ like the young lover who can think of little else than the one she’s longing to see.

In practical terms, this means elevating the “quiet time” into an intimate visit between the lover and his beloved.  It means studying the Bible as if God wrote it, just for you, yesterday. It means upgrading your prayer life from the recitation of a shopping list of requests to an outpouring of your soul to a listening God.

The best thing I ever heard my Bible college and seminary president say was:

“I want to look into the face of God before I look into the face of man.” B. Myron Cedarholm

 I just heard the same counsel from Rick Warren: Keep an open Bible beside your bed.  Don’t end or begin your day without reading until you sense that you have heard something from God.

2. Christian Hedonism is the source of endless joy, strength and resiliency.

I love Christian ministry.  Sometimes I suspect that I love it too much. I also love my family, and lots of other great people. I love a few other things too, from music to forests to art to food to football. But none of these will suffice as the ultimate source of joy and strength and resiliency for a rugged life.

In Psalm 84 the blessed pilgrim is the one who passes through valleys of weeping, seeing his life as a pilgrimage, lived with his heart set on God and his strength coming from God.

To seek my strength in anything less than God Himself is idolatry, and idolatry, besides being sin, is always disappointing (see Jeremiah 2:13). The second-best thing I ever heard B. Myron Cedarholm say was:

“If you want to be faithful to God for the rest of your life, you’ll need to fall in love with Jesus.  Nothing else will do.”

3. In these difficult days, Christian Hedonism is needed more than ever.

For most of us, the last year was pretty tough.  For most pastors, church was tough. Many of us also endured loneliness, loss, physical and emotional separation from loved ones, confusion and uncertainty.

I am not suggesting that we retreat into a passive mysticism (as permanent fixtures in our prayer closets), or a hyper-Calvinism (“When God gets ready to convert the heathen, He’ll do it without our help!”), or a premillennial escapism (“Beam me up, Jesus!”).

I’m suggesting that we need to face our challenging lives and ministries with a joy and strength that comes from an intimate, strength-giving, joy-giving, resilience-providing, ministry-motivating, personal relationship with God through Christ.

That’s Christian Hedonism, and we need it more than ever.