Rating: 
Summary: Could be what you need
Review: There is a time and a season for everything under the sun. If your faith is joyless and you feel like the walls of duty are closing in on you, this is the book for you. John Piper addresses the issue of doing something for the purpose of duty as apposed to using duty as an action to show your love for someone. C.S Lewis illustrates this clearly in The ScrewTape Letters. When the patient is to be mislead into gaining satisfaction from self-sacrifice not in the fact that his sacrifice was beneficial to the receiver of the sacrifice This deception ultimately leads to pain, bitterness and discontentment. Piper's answer to Screwtape's deception is that we should be moved to action because we take delight in serving God and others, and this is what true worship and love is.
Personally the book became boring to me after the first 150 pages because Piper talks about the same thing over and over and over and over ad nauseam. The things that stuck out to me were, do I delight in serving God? What kind of church do I attend, one that stress Truth and Spirit or do I attend a church that focuses on just truth or just spirit (duty/emotional high).
I must agree with him that joy is an important aspect of the Christian faith and one must evaluate their faith if one never experiences any joy. This book is a good start in learning how to be a joyful Christian.
Rating: 
Summary: Life Changing
Review: I recommend this book for anyone who is confused about how to reconcile desires with the pursuit of glorifying God, and who longs to find the purest and most fulfilling pleasures in Him. Be prepared, if you grew up in a traditional Christian environment, to be upset by the first several chapters, but continue to stick to Piper's unusual premise, and you will be greatly benefitted. Piper's ideas, which are in fact just a reopening of the mind and heart to Scripture, have given me a new passion for Christ and have turned me from a stoic who separated pleasure from morality and God into one who desires pleasure in the fullest, but seeks it in God. Please read this book and read it prayerfully. It changed my life considerably, and the Lord can use it in your life as well. Also, check out Desiringgod.org for more Piper works and complete sermon manuscripts, etc. God bless.
Rating:
Summary: A "New" Approach to Living the Christian Faith
Review: Christians should take pleasure in God to the point of being Christian hedonists. Such is the point of the author Piper. He illustrates, from Scripture, how even in times of suffering we can and should be delighting in God. He rebuts the "superspiritual" claims that we should simply do what is right without seeking a reward. To the contrary: Our Lord promises rewards for faithful service. Other Scriptures say the same.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding! In my top-10 all time list.
Review: More than any contemporary writer, John Piper has an understanding of the heart of God. His passion and understanding that we are to find our greatest pleasure in God is so rich. It is not just Piper's love of the Scriptures, although that is present in this book; it is his love of God Himself. He exalts God in a way that others are unable to do. All Piper's books are wonderful but if you are just getting started, this is the one you want.
Rating:
Summary: One of the very best Christian books
Review: Piper's book is one of the most influential books written in the past 20 years. It has led many Christians to a deeper understanding of the Bible, and a closer walk with God. One of the book's best features is the way it integrates the various strands of the Bible's teachings into a satisfying union.The book shows our great need of being God-centred, not centred on ourselves. Piper shows us how God himself is properly God-centred, and seeks to bring us the joys of this true focus. Many people have found this book to be life-changing, and I am most certainly one of them. It is worth reading and re-reading. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Life-Changing
Review: Desiring God could change the way you look at everything, because it will change the way you approach God. Piper passionately writes that the "chief end of man is to glorify God BY enjoying him forever." Our desire for God is a gift that draws us to him and glorifies him. Piper explores this theme in various areas of life with great effect. It is a long book, infused with huge amounts of Scripture, and is worth every minute of reading.
Rating:
Summary: Every Christian should read this book!!
Review: This is an excellent book and is essential for anyone who strives to be more intimate with God and have more joy in their life. I am buying this book for everyone on my Christmas list! It is concise and easy to read. You don't have to be a biblical scholar to understand it. The truths are simple but can profoundly change your life. Piper backs all his arguments up with Scripture. I recommend this book for everyone! It is a must read!
Rating: 
Summary: Biblically Problematic
Review: The philosophy book, Desiring God--Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, is self-described as a serious book that intends to demonstrate that a Christian's pursuit of pleasure in God is his "highest calling" and purpose-in-life. It is for this reason that the philosophy is called hedonism, Christian Hedonism. However, behind the philosophy is a disappointing handling of Scripture. Many passages quoted as "proof texts" of hedonism have key phrases removed, such as "the fear of the Lord" from Psalm 147:11 and Jeremiah 32:40-41. Such "quotations" can leave the reader with a false impression of the meaning of the verse. While the book is packed with Bible verses, most are in reference to traditional topics, such as prayer, fasting, and giving alms. When not attempting to "prove" hedonism from the Bible, the author largely makes proper use of the Scriptures. When attempting to show how the Bible not only supports, but commands Christians to be hedonists, the author seems to be less careful and makes use of partial quotations and passages taken out-of-context in ways that can change their meaning quite dramatically. Perhaps the author's most unfortunate misstep is his philosophical examination of the doctrine of salvation. He muses that the "pursuit of joy" in Christ (hedonism) is a prerequisite to being saved. He uses a number of odd statements to drive home this point, including this phrase from a rhetorical question, "Unless a man be born again into a Christian Hedonist he cannot see the Kingdom of God." And again, concerning one's decision to accept Christ he states, "Before the decision comes delight." Also, "The pursuit of joy in God is not optional. It is not an 'extra' that a person might grow into after he comes to faith. Until your heart has hit upon this pursuit, your 'faith' cannot please God. It is not saving faith." Proof texting has long been held as an invalid approach to developing doctrines, and it seems to be equally weak when applied to creating philosophies of life. While filled with appealing sound-bites, this book is too biblically problematic to be recommended as serious Christian reading.
Rating:
Summary: for the joy of all peoples
Review: Someone else wrote, "It's hard to write a review about a book that has singlehandedly changed your life". I feel pretty much the same way. I live overseas. No other book made me want to cry to see there is no translation for it for my native pastor or friends. John Piper's writings have been translated into 13 other languages. When I read of those whose lives have been changed by the Christian Hedonism concepts and who pass on the book to friends, I'm frustrated at not being able to do so myself, not having a book in my friends' language. There may be other sources of good reading, but they're still not the same as "Desiring God". Piper shows how we don't serve God and trust Him for the strength and joy in it, but how we actually live for the JOY of it, how God receives greatest glory when we find our greatest satisfaction in Him.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is OK but ...
Review: The biggest difficulty I have with John Piper's writing and preaching is that he so often comes on too strong; this book felt to me like the literary equivalent of being trapped in a confined space with a very pushy "Have I got a new idea for you!" salesperson. (Just count the number of exclamation points used throughout.) By the time I had waded my way through it (I was required to read the book for a church-related course), I was mortally tired of both "Christian hedonism" and John Piper. The best parts of this book were the marvelous quotations from C. S. Lewis, a man whose writing style, in counterpoint to Piper's own, was gentler, less bombastic, more self-effacing, and ultimately more compelling. I have great admiration for Piper; he is a brilliant man with many fine ideas and I consider him a brother in faith. I also respect him for his zeal and yet, somehow, I also find that zeal to be at times very wearing. It's fine to be passionate, but when that passion leads you to steamroll right over your readers and listeners, I think it begins to be more of a hindrance than a help. Obviously, many other readers would disagree with me. I suppose I have just never responded well to the hard sell, "I've got this thing figured out so why haven't you?" approach that seems to be so much in evidence here. As for the basic ideas presented in this book, you'd do better to immerse yourself in the simple truths of Scripture--particularly from the Psalms (e.g., Psalm 37:4)--to get the essential and important ideas presented so heavy-handedly here. Finally, to those reviewers who said that, next to the Bible, "Desiring God" was the most life-changing book you've ever read, I would heartily recommend "Pilgrim's Progress" by John Bunyan, a magnificent allegory of the Christian life that, I think, takes a more thought-provoking and serious look at the nature and qualities of a mature, growing, and balanced "God-centered" Christian life and yet, though it is rich with Scriptural truth, scarcely mentions (at least as far as I can tell) anything that looks like "Christian hedonism."
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