Quote Monday

The last couple days I've been reading "Desiring God" by John Piper. Each chapter is composed topically as he addresses different realms of the Christian life with desiring God, or, as he would say, becoming a Christian Hedonist. In the chapter dealing with worship he says,
"Misguided virtue smothers the spirit of worship. The person who has the vague notion that it is virtue to overcome self-interest, and that it is vice to seek pleasure, will scarely be able to worship. For worship, is the most hedonistic affair of life and must not be ruined with the least thought of disinterestedness. The great hindrance to worship is not that we are a pleasure-seeking people, but that we are willing to settle for such pitiful pleasures" (Piper, 98).
Our culture today largely thinks that in order for an act/attitude to be virtuous one must give up thereself. On the opposite end, to seek pleasure is to be full of vice. For the Christian, it should be the other way around!
God is our ultimate good and worship. He is the final stage so to speak of satisfaction, goodness, delight, etc. If we were to pursue something in or out of God other then himself...we aren't really delighting or worshiping Him! God is not a means, or way, to an end in goodness, rather he is the end of goodness and worship.
Thus, God commands us to delight ourselves in Him (Psalm 37:4). In this sense, it is of our self-interest to worship God because this is our ultimate pleasure! Unfortunately, we usually settle for such pitiful pleasures as Piper says rather then the ulimate joy, God in Christ Jesus! What a foolish thing it is for us, who are made in the image of God, to look for something to fulfill our pleasure other then that which we are designed to find pleasure in!