The Heart of Mental Health

Last night John Piper addressed the American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC) at their world conference in Nashville on the topic "Beholding Glory and Becoming Whole: Seeing and Savoring God as the Heart of Mental Health."

Here is an excerpt from his address:


What It Means to Feel Loved by God

This may seem obvious, but my concern is that in preaching and in counseling we are always drifting away from the spiritually obvious to the naturally desirable—especially if the naturally desirable “works.” We are spring-loaded in our sin to feel loved only if God endorses our desire to be made much of. Almost every human being loves to be made much of. And when it happens, we feel that we are being loved. How could something so pleasing not be love?

Here is the devastating warning from Jonathan Edwards 250 years ago:

True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God. And this is the spring of all their delights, and the cream of all their pleasures. . . . But the dependence of the affections of hypocrites is in a contrary order: they first rejoice . . . that they are made so much of by God; and then on that ground, he seems in a sort, lovely to them.

This is my concern. Do we make clear to people over and over again that yes, they should feel loved because Christ died for them; and yes, they should feel loved because they are undeserving and he loves them anyway; and yes, they should feel loved because their sins are forgiven and God’s wrath is removed through Christ; but to what end? Died for while undeserving. Forgiven. Wrath removed. But to what end?

And just at this point, I wonder if many of our people are left thinking that what it means to be loved by God simply that he affirms their desire to be made much of. “Christ died for me to make much of me. He rescued me while undeserving to make much of me. He forgave me to make much of me. He removed his wrath to make much of me.” Oh how gloriously good this feels! What a precious gospel! And it’s all merely natural. There’s nothing supernatural about it. It looks like recovery and healing! It works. But at root, it is not “to the praise of the glory of his grace.” It’s all to the praise of the glory of his affirmation of me.

So my second implication is that feeling loved by God means feeling glad that God not only crushed his Son for me, but that he is now crushing every vestige of desire in my life that competes with the pleasure of the praise of the glory of his grace.

You can read the whole manuscript at:
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ByConference/35/4216_Beholding_Glory_and_Becoming_Whole_Seeing_and_Savoring_God_as_the_Heart_of_Mental_Health/