Christian Hedonism

I disagree. The abundant life is not 'hedonism'.

 

Christian Hedonism is the conviction that God’s ultimate goal in the world (his glory) and our deepest desire (to be happy) are one and the same, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Not only is God the supreme source of satisfaction for the human soul, but God himself is glorified by our being satisfied in him. Therefore, our pursuit of joy in him is essential.

Christian Hedonism claims that the Christian life should be the pursuit of maximum joy in God — joy both in quality and quantity. Fullness of joy and joy forevermore (Psalm 16:11) are found only in him.

Christian Hedonism

 

Hebrews 4: 9 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his... Brother Glen

 

Christian Hedonism is a philosophy of life built on the following five convictions:
1. The longing to be happy is a universal human experience, and it is good, not sinful.
2. We should never try to deny or resist our longing to be happy, as though it were a bad impulse. Instead, we should seek to intensify this longing and nourish it with whatever will provide the deepest and most enduring satisfaction.
3. The deepest and most enduring happiness is found only in God. Not from God, but in God.
4. The happiness we find in God reaches its consummation when it is shared with others in the manifold ways of love.
5. To the extent that we try to abandon the pursuit of our own pleasure, we fail to honor God and love people. Or, to put it positively: The pursuit of pleasure is a necessary part of all worship and virtue. That is:

The chief end of man is to glorify God
by
enjoying Him forever.
(p. 28)​

…I turned to the Psalms … and found the language of Hedonism everywhere. The quest for pleasure was not even optional, but commanded: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).
The psalmists sought to do just this: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1–2). “My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1). The motif of thirsting has its satisfying counterpart when the psalmist says that men “drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; and You give them to drink of the river of Your delights” (Psalm 36:8, nasb).

I found that the goodness of God, the very foundation of worship, is not a thing you pay your respects to out of some kind of disinterested reverence. No, it is something to be enjoyed: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8). “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103).
As C. S. Lewis says, God in the Psalms is the “all-satisfying Object.” His people adore Him unashamedly for the “exceeding joy” they find in Him (Psalm 43:4). He is the source of complete and unending pleasure: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).
John Piper. Desiring God. Multnomah Publishers, Inc. © 1986, 1996, p. 23.

 

Your post is deep, thanks for that. The (less than a handful) of Christians that had the deepest impact on me, your post describes. The two retired missionaries that led the group I was part of 'rejoiced continually' in the goodness of the Lord, as did a couple of Primitive Baptists later on in my life.

Me? I do not say this facetiously or insincerely or contentiously, but truthfully, I'm not sure if I ever knew what I 'wanted', but God knew, and provided it.

Thank You LORD.

 

I have this printed on a 3x5 card on my bulletin board. John Piper says that if you don't like the word, then don't use it, but the truths delineated by Deacon, to me, are extremely central to my way of thinking. And I know Piper. He lives by these things.