How to Find Your Joy in God: Three Habits for Christian Hedonists

«Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your labor for what does not satisfy? Listen to me and eat only what is good, and enjoy the full!» (Isaiah 55:1–2).

It’s almost too good to be true: God not only saves us from the eternal punishment we deserve for our sins, but also satisfies us forever with Himself. And that is the joy for which we were created. God is not the cosmic destroyer of joy, as many of us may have feared in our youth. On the contrary, He is the God who, in Christ, reaches out His hands to us, saying, «Come, all who thirst!»

But how do we «come to the water» daily in the Christian life? How do we «eat what is good» and enjoy delicious food for our souls? How do I practically seek my joy in Him?

The answer begins with an important truth: God gives us the means. He gives us the dignity to participate in the process, to take advantage of the specific channels He has created for us. And He works in us to cultivate and develop various «habits of grace» based on His revealed means of grace in our pursuit of joy in Him.

Habits for hedonists

Over the years, I have found that long lists of specific practices and disciplines (whether twelve, fifteen, or more) are ineffective and often discouraging. What I need is to analyze the specific practices and find the God-given principles that connect them.

«"God stops and inclines His ear to listen to us. He wants to hear you.".

One way, among others, to summarize the matrix of God’s grace for the Christian life is in three great means: (1) hearing God’s voice (in His word), (2) having His ear (in prayer), (3) belonging to His body (in fellowship with the local church). As far as I can tell, all the «spiritual disciplines» that are directed to Scripture are grouped into one or more of these three centers: word, prayer, and fellowship. For example, in the book of Acts, these elements are combined in a summary of the collective habits of the early church: «They devoted themselves continually to the apostles» teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayers” (Acts 2:42).

So, our various habits of grace are the practices we develop (both individually and collectively) for daily and weekly access to God’s ongoing, soul-satisfying means of grace for the satisfaction of our souls in Christ. In particular, these three categories of God’s ongoing grace play an important role in nourishing our joy in a way that glorifies God.

Take His Word

It is the words of God, through His apostles and prophets in Scripture, that are the first and most important means of His grace to us. The God who is is the Speaking God. He speaks first. As Creator, He initiates communication with us as with His creatures. And as our Savior, He initiates the message of our salvation. His Son is the culminating expression of His Word (John 1:1; Heb. 1:1–2), and He has filled the Book for us—from Genesis to Revelation—with His outward, objective words about Himself, our humanity, our world, and our redemption.

Through His word, He offers us the special joy of being led, of receiving the initiative He takes toward us. And He is glorified in our joy through Scripture in many ways. First, He is honored when we come to Him (and not elsewhere) and accept His words as truth—when we say to Him, as Peter said to Jesus, «Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life» (John 6:68). Also, when we come to Him, it honors (or dishonors) Him in terms of frequency and priority. Do we come to Him regularly or irregularly, and do we prioritize His word over other influences and activities?

How we come to Him is also of great importance. God wants us to come hungry for His word. To come eagerly. To come hedonistically, consciously seeking to satisfy our souls in Him, desiring Him as newborn babies who «like newborn babes desire the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow» (1 Pet. 2:2). God wants us to approach Him through His word as to «a fountain of living water» (Jer. 2:13); to come humbly, and receive His words (Jas. 1:21)—even when they seem strange and overwhelming to us—and to seek to obey them, not just by hearing His words but by actually doing them (Jas. 1:22).

God is glorified not only in our hungry coming, but also when we enjoy the feast, when we experience His words as «my delight» (Ps. 1:2; 119:16), as «the delight of my heart» (Ps. 119:111), as «the joy and delight of my heart» (Jer. 15:16), as fuel for the fire of our joy. God is glorified when we approach His words as David did in Psalm 19: as words that strengthen the soul (v. 8) and rejoice the heart (v. 9), more desirable than gold (v. 11), sweeter than honey (v. 11), and of great reward (v. 12).

To come to God’s word is to come to God himself. He expresses His words to us as initiatives, invitations, and directions so that we may know Him. As we relate to His words, so we relate to God himself. And as we enjoy His communication with us in His word, He also invites us to speak back.

Enjoy the fact that He listens to you.

Prayer, then, is another distinctive means of His grace. By opening the door to heaven for us through the person and work of His Son, God gives us the amazing gift of being heard. We can speak to Him. Prayer brings us the special joy of knowing that we matter to Almighty God. He not only speaks to us, but also pauses, inclining His ear to hear our response. God wants to hear us.

Prayer glorifies God as we approach Him as the God He is: as a treasure, not a destroyer of joy; as kind, not cruel; as attentive, not one who is constantly distracted or busy; as near, not far; as caring, not indifferent; and, note, as our generous Master, not a domestic servant. As John Piper writes about cultivating this hedonistic impulse in prayer: «When we humble ourselves like little children, and do not pretend to be self-sufficient, but happily rush into the joy of our Father’s embrace, the glory of his grace increases, and the longing of our soul is satisfied. Our interest and his glory are one» («Desiring God,» pp. 159–60).

God is glorified when we turn to Him (i.e., pray) to meet our needs, as He says in Psalm 51:15: «You will call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me.» Through prayer, we receive the joy of deliverance, while He receives glory as the Deliverer. Prayer serves both to satisfy our joy—«Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full» (John 16:24)—and to seek His glory—«Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son» (John 14:13).

Cherish His Church

And last but not least—encompassing both His words to us and our speaking to Him—are the ecclesial (corporate) habits of grace. We are not alone in the Christian life. God gives us the gift of belonging to a body called the church, the very Bride of His Son.

The reality and experience of the church gives us the joy of belonging and unity. God created us for life together, not only to receive his grace through others, but also to be living, breathing instruments of his grace for one another. In all of this, God Himself is the great purpose and source of our joy. His gifts, properly received, point us to Him as the deepest and most lasting source of joy—our joy.

God is glorified in the joy of His people through the church in our unity in His Son, as we «with one voice and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ» (Rom. 15:6). He is glorified as we receive His grace through one another as gifts from Him (1 Cor. 12:4–11). The church is the first context in which we embody the obedience and life changes that Christ calls us to and produces in us. Our joy in Him changes us, and He means for us to demonstrate such changes to others, which begins in fellowship with those who embody their joy in Him and then extends into our world.

«"God is not the cosmic destroyer of joy that many of us once feared.".

A serious pursuit of joy in God is not a solitary existence. In fact, for most of us it will be a shared journey. We will certainly need times when we are «alone with God» in His word and prayer, but we will also regularly receive His word together and respond to Him in prayer together, as we do in corporate worship. Those who are serious about joy in God will not be among those who «forsake the assembling of themselves together,» but will be constantly, urgently, and joyfully encouraging one another (Heb. 10:25).

The Christian Hedonism Fellowship is a gift, and God does not intend to wait until the age to come to give it. He offers it now, in this life, and makes the lives and influences of fellow Christians an indispensable means of our pursuit of joy in Him, as we together receive His words in Scripture and are given the opportunity to turn to Him in prayer.