I'm on chapter seven of Piper's Don't Waste Your Life, a book I am having less and less inhibitions about recommending with all of my heart. There are many "good" books that I have enjoyed reading, and think that others might enjoy. I don't eagerly recommend them because how many times have you heard from someone, "Oh, you have to read this book! It's the best book I've read on the topic!" And you're thinking, "This is probably the only book he / she has read on the topic." When you finally get around to reading it, you think to yourself, "Now, why was he / she all excited about this?"
My book list is filled with recommendations, and I only have time to read the best. I grow weary of enthusiastic recommendations. Thus, I am very cautious to hand any out.
While I own sixteen of Piper's books, and consider them all very good books, there are only three which I consider "fully great" and recommend with little doubt in my mind that whoever I'm recommending it to will benefit from them. Desiring God is the first, Pleasures of God is the second, and the third is Future Grace. That's what I call his "Essential Trilogy."
I've now got an Episode I on my hands. I'm nearly ready to start heavily promoting Don't Waste Your Life. I don't yet prefer it over Desiring God, but I agree that it's easier and more appealing than handing someone a 300 page book (this is 190). Its message is the spillover of the other books, and I am loving it.
Okay, the introduction is finished. Now I can actually get into why I'm updating my page.
This is a further thought on the active/passive thing I mentioned before. I read this next section this morning and yelled in my mind, "That's it! That's it! That's what I'm trying to communicate."
The Ruinous Ethic of Mere AvoidanceOne of the marks of this peacetime mind-set is what I call an avoidance ethic. In wartime we ask different questions about what to do with our lives than we do in peacetime. We ask: What can I do to advance the cause? What can I do to bring the victory? What sacrifice can I make or what risk can I take to insure the joy of triumph? In peacetime we tend to ask, What can I do to be more comfortable? To have more fun? To avoid trouble, and possibly, avoid sin?
If we are going to pay the price and take the risks it will cost to make people glad in God, we move beyond the avoidance ethic. This way of life is utterly inadequate to waken people to the beauty of Christ. Avoiding fearful trouble and forbidden behaviors impresses almost no one. The avoidance ethic by itself is not Christ-commending or God-glorifying. [emphasis mine] There are many disciplined unbelievers who avoid the same behaviors Christians do. Jesus calls us to something far more radical than that.
John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), p. 118
Does that make clearer sense? A life defined by the question, "What is permissable?"--That's the life I'm talking about. The whole emphasis is on what to avoid, not what to pursue. Then Piper gave in to all my hopes and requests by putting into words exactly what I have been thinking:
The Wrong Questions and the Right Ones
People who are content with the avoidance ethic generally ask the wrong questions about behavior. They ask, What's wrong with it? What's wrong with this movie? Or this music? Or this game? Or these companions? Or this way of relaxing? Or this investment? Or this restaurant? Or shopping at this store? What's wrong with going to the cabin every weekend? Or having a cabin? This kind of question will rarely yield a lifestyle that commends Christ as all-satisfying and makes people glad in God. It simply results in a list of don'ts. It feeds the avoidance ethic.
The better questions to ask about possible behavior is: How will this help me treasure Christ more? How will it help me show that I do treasure Christ? How will it help me know Christ or display Christ? The Bible says, "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (I Corinthians 10:31). So the question is mainly positive, not negative. How can I portray God as glorious in this action? How can I enjoy making much of Him in this behavior?
Ibid, p. 119
I'm hesitant to go on quoting him, because he gets rather specific and it would be like quoting the whole chapter (which is worth reading!). He is speaking my language, one I would have never spoken two years ago. Heck, I wouldn't have spoken this probably a month ago! This is beginning to alter, heavily, my views of making money, of being successful in business, of how I spend my time on entertainment, you name it.
It hasn't been a working from the outside inward. That is, as if to say "This movie has evil scences in it, so since the Bible says don't look at evil, don't watch this movie." There is truth in that. But again, it's like we approach everything in life as if we have some sort of right to do it, then begin sifting it through a mental checklist of criteria it must meet in order to be viewed or performed, then we say, "Okay, I can do it because it passes my 'Don'ts' list."
It's like a life that is just one big www.screenit.com review. Blech. I don't want that. Screenit has its place and I am very grateful for it, don't get me wrong. But a wasted life is one that simply evaluates whether we do things based on their sinfulness, not their profitability for magnifying Christ and enjoying Him more and making others glad in Him.
I might as well quote it, it sums up this entry well.
Clean Noses and Quality Family Time is Not LifeOh, how many lives are wasted by people who believe that the Christian life means simply avoiding badness and providing for the family. So there is no adultery, no stealing, no killing, no embezzlement, no fraud--just lots of hard work during the day, and lots of TV and PG-13 videos in the evening (during quality family time), and lots of fun stuff on the weekend--woven around church (mostly). This is life for millions of people. Wasted life. We were created for more, far more.
Ibid, p. 119
So says the almighty pursuit of "balance" in our lives. Anyone who knows me knows that of late I've not been the least bit happy about statements such as, "The key is to keep balanced." It's not that I believe that balance is wrong. I think we should be balanced and we should be involved in our culture. But our focus so quickly becomes maintaining an equilibrium, not on Christ.
Once again...
But my sense is that in the prosperous West, the danger in the church is not that there are too many overly zealous people who care too deeply about the lost, and invest hazardously in the cause of the Gospel, and ruin their lives with excessive mercy to the poor. For every careless saint who burns himself out and breaks up his family with misdirected zeal, there are a thousand who coast with the world, treating Jesus like a helpful add-on, but not asn all-satisfying, all-authoritative King in the cause of love.Ibid, p. 118
*cha-ching* You can hopefully see why I'm excited about this book and am having less reservations about putting into my "Must Read" category for every believer. This is the life we're called to live. Why? Because it is what will bring God the most glory and will bring us the most joy. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
More on this later.
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