John Piper on why we attend Church
From a painting of Immanuel Kant (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Why do we attend church on Sundays ? Fundamentally, we come to church starved for God . Coming with our need, we seek God in our worship and in hearing the word faithfully preached. We arrive at church with a God-sized appetite for spiritual pleasures that only the Living God can fill. But is it honorable to find our motivation to get to church in seeking blessing from God? Or is that a selfishness that spoils the whole morning and embarrases God? Isn’t it more honorable to arrive at church with disinterested motives? Pastor John says no. Here’s why. Immanuel Kant , the German philosopher who died in 1804, was the most powerful exponent of the notion that the moral value of an act decreases as we aim to derive any benefit from it. Acts are good if the doer is "disinterested." We should do the good because it is good. Any motivation to seek joy or reward corrupts the act. Piper goes on to explain what’s on the...