In Chapter 3 of When I Don’t Desire God, Pastor John Piper gives 5 reasons why the fight for joy is a good fight of faith:
1. Evil is the enemy of our joy. When we delight ourselves in God more than in our accomplishments and ministry or job identity, we are opposing Satan and unbelief.
2. God doesn’t leave us to rely on our own strength to fight for joy. As Martin Luther wrote in the great Reformation hymn “A Mighty Fortress”:
“No strength of ours can match His might,
We would be lost, rejected.
But now a champion comes to fight,
Whom God Himself elected.”
3. The good fight is not about our struggle to carry the burden of our adversity, but a struggle to let God carry the burden for us. We must learn to trust God to handle our burdens, freeing us from worry and giving us hope, peace and joy.
4. Unlike most fights, the fight for joy involves not exaltation but humility. It’s confessing our weakness and crying our desperately for God’s mercy.
5. Our fight for joy greatly glorifies God. We show that we know the infinite worth of God when we resist “alien joy”.
Reminder: The annotation for God is Closer Than You Think by John Ortberg will post tomorrow (Monday) evening. All books listed in the Annotated Bibliography are available from Amazon simply by left-clicking on the book’s image.
