Daniel writes in to ask, how does Christian hedonism avoid making joy into an idol?

Well, the short answer is, Christian hedonism doesn't make a god or an idol out of joy because

Christian hedonism says, we make a god out of whatever we find most joy in. That's the short answer.

So find your greatest joy in God and thus be done with all idolatry. But his question is,

how do you avoid making that mistake? It's not as though the mistake can't be made. In fact,

that would be my first statement about how to avoid it is to say admit it can happen. And I admit

it can happen not just because Daniels asked me how not to let it happen, but because the Bible says

it actually does happen in 2 Timothy 3 where Paul says in the last days, men will be lovers of

pleasure rather than lovers of God. Now when I read that, I say, really, that's amazing.

The fallen human heart is capable of suicidal illusions because I call it an illusion because

if you make pleasure the object of your love, it's like making love the object of your love.

It's like making being pleased, the object of being pleased. It's self-contradictory. It's

itself defeating my capacity, my faculty for delighting was made to delight in something.

Delighting wasn't made to delight in delighting. Delighting was made to delight in something. If you

delight in the delighting, you're like a hunter who aims to shoot his bullet. He's not going to

get any deer that way. He's going to go hungry, which is why I said it's suicidal. It's an illusion to

and yet it's true. I mean, it's a good question. It's not a stupid question because Paul says

men will be lovers of pleasure. Men will be so stupid and so insane and so

drawn in on themselves. They will commit to suicidal hunting of trying to shoot the bullet in

their gun. But here's another safeguard. We could talk about this all day, but let me just give

you a few. Christian hedonism says never merely pursue your joy. That's hedonism. That's not

Christian hedonism. That's just hedonism. Christian hedonism says pursue your joy in God or more

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