A woman in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, writes into Ask Pastor John, at times it feels selfish

to pray constantly for God to give me joy.

How does a Christian hedonist who groans to glorify God use prayer to increase his

joy in God without feeling selfish for asking so frequently?

You must define selfishness in a way that is different from the pursuit of joy that

the Bible commands.

And here are my distinctions, I'll give you several.

Selfishness, which is a bad thing, I'm assuming it's bad, there's a bad definition for selfishness

and this is what I mean by the badness of it.

It's wanting the exaltation of self without loving the superior exaltation of God.

Number two, selfishness is wanting something for yourself at the expense of others.

Number three, selfishness is wanting to be happy without our happiness being in the happiness

of others, happiness and four, selfishness is wanting to be happy without the happiness

being a power to make others happy with the very happiness we have in God.

So those are my four distinguishings of selfishness from the biblical pursuit of joy.

If our craving for joy, our prayer for joy, turns into one of those, we should feel selfish

and we should feel bad and we should repent.

But Christian hedonism is specifically designed to prevent all four of those.

And here's how, Christian hedonism always stresses that our joy is in God.

We don't merely pursue joy for joy, we pursue joy in God.

That's the first thing.

We've got to keep that in mind all the time.

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