The whole life of a good Christian is a holy desire.

The key to Christian living is passion, desire, hunger, longing.

One of the reasons these things are incomprehensible in our churches is that our people

have so shriveled in their capacity to feel desire that a talk like this absolutely makes no sense.

So how do we as Christians rediscover delight in God? That's the question that John Piper answers

from the thought of Augustin in this episode of Light and Truth. This biographical talk was

originally given at the 1998 Bethlehem Conference for pastors.

Loving God in Augustine's mind is never reduced to deeds of obedience or acts of willpower.

How common that is in our day. Love is commanded so it can't be an emotion. Love is

an act of will. Love is obedience to God. Oh for Augustine in our day.

Here's his definition of the love of God. I call charity.

The motion of the soul toward the enjoyment of God for his own sake and the enjoyment of oneself

and one's neighbor for the sake of God. Joy is the essence of love and for American Christianity

it's a caboose. No wonder our reformed thinking and preaching is unappealing.

We don't get grace. Grace is the giving of a sovereign joy that triumphs over all competitors.

Loving God for Augustine is always conceived essentially as delighting in God above all things

and in other things for the sake of God. He loves the two little oh God who loves anything

together with thee which he loves not for thy sake. That is a revolutionary sentence.

I read that years ago and it just blew me away. I like my wife.

She's here somewhere. I like tell us. I could idolize my family. My four boys are a treasure to me

and better that they die than that I love them more than God or love them for any reason but for

God's sake. It's Augustinianism at its core. Now Augustine analyzed his own motives down to

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