Fight for Joy with Fervent Prayer

Some more from John Piper's book When I Don't Desire God.

What do you do when you don't desire the Word of God? Or when you read it and don't see anything that gives you joy? Or when your joy is weak and disintegrates before the allurements of the world? What do you do if you are not satisfied in the God of the Bible, but prefer the pleasures of the world? Did Paul or the psalmists or the celebrated saints of history ever struggle with this? Yes, they did. And we should take heart. We all struggle with seasons of lukewarmness and spiritual numbness of heart. There are times in the lives of the most godly people when spiritual hunger becomes weak, and darkness threatens to consume the light, and everything but the vaguely remembered taste of joy evaporates...

How then do we fight for joy when our desires languish and we may have no inclination for the Word of God? The answer we are focusing on in this chapter is prayer. The key to joy in God is God's omnipotent, transforming grace, bought by his Son, applied by his Spirit, wakened by the Word, and laid hold of by faith through prayer. (p. 137-138)

May God help us to never stop fighting!

Make An Appointment With the Word of God

Some more from John Piper's book When I Don't Desire God.

In chapter 7, Piper writes about The Worth of God's Word in the Fight for Joy.

A thousand interesting things compete for our attention to the Word of God. I confess that after fifty years of loving and reading and memorizing Scripture, I can be lured away from appointed times in the Word by something as insignificant as a new computer device. The illusory pleasure of newness can temporarily trump the far superior benefits of keeping my appointment with the Word of God.

This is evidence in me of what Paul calls indwelling sin (Rom. 7:17, 20, 23). It is part of the remaining corruption lingering after the death of the old self (Rom. 6:6). I am not proud of it. It grieves me. At times it frightens me. It is part of the reason I speak so much of the fight for joy. I know this sinful inclination must be fought to the death. It is this fight Paul has in mind when he says, "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you" (Col. 3:5). We will speak shortly about how the Word helps us do that. But first we must fight just to keep our appointments with the Word. (p. 96-97)

I have found it very helpful to look at my time in God's Word as an appointment that I must keep. It is an appointment that I must not be late for. I must not allow other things to crowd it out.

When I Don't Desire God 2

Some more from John Piper's book When I Don't Desire God.

Piper writes that one of the keys in the fight for joy is becoming a preacher and preaching the Gospel to yourself.

Far too many Christians are passive in their fight for joy. They tell me about their condition of joylessness, and I ask about the kinds of strategies they have pursued to defeat this enemy, and they give the impression that they are a helpless victim: "Joylessness is just there. What can I do?" Well, God does not mean for us to be passive. He means for us to fight the fight of faith - the fight for joy. And the central strategy is to preach the gospel to yourself. This is war. Satan is preaching for sure. If we remain passive, we surrender the field to him. (p. 81)

When I Don't Desire God

I've recently begun reading John Piper's book When I Don't Desire God. It's one of those books that I've had for quite a while and am just now getting around to reading it. If you are interested, the entire book is available to download for free at Desiring God's website.

In chapter 1 there was a quote from C.S. Lewis regarding the role of duty. Most of us at times struggle with the role of duty. We may not want to read our Bibles because we feel it is a duty instead of a delight. So, we tell ourselves to wait until it feels like a delight. Lewis compares the idea of duty to a crutch which we all must use sometimes to help us.

Provided the things is in itself right, the more one likes it and the less one has to "try to be good," the better. A perfect man would never act from a sense of duty; he'd always want the right thing more than the wrong one. Duty is only a substitute for love (of God and of other people), like a crutch, which is a substitute for a leg. Most of us need the crutch at times; but of course it's idiotic to use the crutch when our own legs (our own loves, tastes, habits, etc.) can do the journey on their own! ~ C.S. Lewis (quoted in When I Don't Desire God, p. 18)