|
bd3d1d4
|
America today is a "save yourself" society if there ever was one. But does it really work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, typhus, etc. Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce..
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
9d49af8
|
The greatest cause in the world is joyfully rescuing people from hell, meeting their earthly needs, making them glad in God, and doing it with a kind, serious pleasure that makes Christ look like the Treasure he is.
|
|
christ
christianity
god
kindness
life
purpose
treasure
|
John Piper |
|
8271413
|
Relativism poses as humble by saying: "We are not smart enough to know what the truth is--or if there is any universal truth." It sounds humble. But look carefully at what is happening. It's like a servant saying: I am not smart enough to know which person here is my master--or if I even have a master. The result is that I don't have a master and I can be my own master. That is in reality what happens to relativists: In claiming to be too l..
|
|
pride
relativism
|
John Piper |
|
e41fcc8
|
Not to abide in Jesus' love would mean that we stop believing that we are loved by Jesus. We look at our circumstances - perhaps persecution or disease or abandonment - and we conclude that we are not loved by Jesus anymore. That's the opposite of abiding in the love of Jesus. So abiding in his love means continuing to believe, moment by moment, that we are loved.
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
e81d453
|
God seldom calls us for an easier life, but always calls us to know more of him and drink more deeply of His sustaining grace.
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
338a657
|
God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many professing Christians have been deceived by this doctrine is how little they give and how much they own. God has prospered them. And by an almost irresistible law of consumer culture (baptized by a doctrine of health, wealth, and pro..
|
|
compassion
evangelism
giving
gospel
greed
hunger
need
prosperity
sharing
starvation
stewardship
|
John Piper |
|
82568dd
|
Taken as a whole, the story of Ruth is one of those signs. It was written to give us encouragement and hope that all the perplexing turns in our lives are going somewhere good. They do not lead off a cliff. In all the setbacks of our lives as believers, God is plotting for our joy.
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
532eed1
|
Do not say, 'But it is hypocritical to thank God with my tongue when I don't feel thankful in my heart.' There is such a thing as hypocritical thanksgiving. Its aim is to conceal ingratitude and get the praise of men. That is not your aim. Your aim in loosing your tongue with words of gratitude is that God would be merciful and fill your words with the emotion of true gratitude. You are not seeking the praise of men; you are seeing the merc..
|
|
thankfulness
|
John Piper |
|
02f20b2
|
Why don't people ask us about our hope? The answer is probably that we look as if we hope in the same things they do. Our lives don't look like they are on the Calvary road, stripped down for sacrificial love, serving others with the sweet assurance that we don't need to be rewarded in this life.
|
|
hope
life
sacrifice
service
|
John Piper |
|
49f28b5
|
It has to do with seeing God. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8)."
|
|
purity
|
John Piper |
|
17fc75f
|
What defines us as Christians is not most profoundly that we have come to know him but that he took note of us and made us his own.
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
5c92934
|
All that looks like reality to us is dependent on God. There is creation and Creator, nothing more. And creation gets all its meaning and purpose from God.
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
821e962
|
That's who Jesus Christ is. He became the final Priest and the final Sacrifice. Sinless, he did not offer sacrifices for himself. Immortal, he never has to be replaced. Human, he could bear human sins. Therefore he did not offer sacrifices for himself; he offered himself as the final sacrifice. There will never be the need for another. There is one mediator between us and God. One priest. We need no other. Oh, how happy are those who draw n..
|
|
religion
|
John Piper |
|
d41b743
|
The only answer in these modern times, as in all other times, is the blood of Christ. When our conscience rises up and condemns us, where will we turn? We turn to Christ. We turn to the suffering and death of Christ--the blood of Christ. This is the only cleansing agent in the universe that can give the conscience relief in life and peace in death.
|
|
religion
|
John Piper |
|
df30662
|
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. It is not simply a way to "enhance" your walk with the Lord. Until your heart has hit upon this pursuit, your "faith" cannot please God. It is not saving faith. Saving faith is the confidence that if you sell all you have and forsake all sinful pleasures, the hidden treasure of holy joy will satisfy your deepest desires. Sa..
|
|
everything
freedom
joy
life
peace
precious
prize
purity
treasure
wholeness
|
John Piper |
|
579e14b
|
Grace is not simply leniency when we have sinned. Grace is the enabling gift of God not to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon.
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
3e0fb0b
|
Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that He will provide the help we need. Prayer humbles us as needy and exalts God as wealthy
|
|
prayer
|
John Piper |
|
1c1c8f7
|
A prayerless Christian is like a bus driver trying alone to push his bus out of a rut because he doesn't know Clark Kent is on board.
|
|
jesus
simile
|
John Piper |
|
c40fa28
|
The greatest joy is joy in God. This is plain from Psalm 16:11: "You [God] will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever." Fullness of joy and eternal joy cannot be improved. Nothing is fuller than full, and nothing is longer than eternal. And this joy is owing to the presence of God, not the accomplishments of man. Therefore, if God wants to love us infinitely an..
|
|
faith
glory
god
joy
pleasure
|
John Piper |
|
f8abb41
|
The "war" is being fought along the line between sin and righteousness in every family. It is being fought along the line between truth and falsehood in every school... Between justice and injustice in every legislature... Between integrity and corruption in every office... Between love and hate in every ethnic group... Between pride and humility in every sport... Between the beautiful and the ugly in every art... Between right doctrine and..
|
|
john
piper
religious
|
John Piper |
|
138c1a5
|
Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
07844e5
|
We are more than a collection of appetites - we are of God.
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
f56920d
|
A mind fed daily on TV diminishes. Your mind was made to know and love God.
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
c3b93f6
|
The evil and suffering in this world are greater than any of us can comprehend. But evil and suffering are not ultimate. God is. Satan, the great lover of evil and suffering, is not sovereign. God is.
|
|
suffering
theology
|
John Piper |
|
39e8ba6
|
The thought of building a life around minimal morality or minimal significance--a life defined by the question, "What is permissible?"--felt almost disgusting to me. I didn't want a minimal life. I didn't want to live on the outskirts of reality. I wanted to understand the main thing about life and pursue it."
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
7041d8e
|
Faith is born and sustained by the Word of God, and out of faith grows the flower of joy.
|
|
growth
life
word
|
John Piper |
|
7270750
|
God is calling us to live for the sake of Christ and to do that through suffering. Christ chose suffering; it didn't just happen to Him. He chose it as the way to create and perfect the church. Now He calls us to choose suffering. That is, He calls us to take up our cross and follow Him on the Calvary road and deny ourselves and make sacrifices for the sake of ministering to the church and presenting His sufferings to the world.
|
|
love
mission
missionary
missions
|
John Piper |
|
e41b5f5
|
The Lord is kind. He is good to all who take refuge under his wings.
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
92c4539
|
The only people who soul can truly magnify the Lord are...people who acknowledge their lowly estate and are overwhelmed by the condescension of the magnificent God.
|
|
christian
god
mary
|
John Piper |
|
d62274a
|
Marriage is not mainly about prospering economically; it is mainly about displaying the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. Knowing Christ is more important than making a living. Treasuring Christ is more important than bearing children. Being united to Christ by faith is a greater source of marital success than perfect sex and double-income prosperity.
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
86268d6
|
Therefore bread was created for the glory of Christ. Hunger and thirst were created for the glory of Christ. And fasting was created for the glory of Christ. Which means that bread magnifies Christ in two ways: by being eaten with gratitude for his goodness, and by being forfeited out of hunger for God himself. When we eat, we taste the emblem of our heavenly food--the Bread of Life. And when we fast we say, "I love the Reality above the em..
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
f8187b4
|
O that we would so love the gospel and have so much compassion for lost people that tribulation and distress and persecution and famine and nakedness and danger and sword and gun and terrorist would turn us not into fearful complainers, but bold heralds of good news.
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
1ec951f
|
God created me---and you---to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion----namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. Enjoying and displaying are both crucial. If we try to display the excellence of God without joy in it, we will display a shell of hypocrisy and create scorn or legalism. But if we claim to enjoy his excellence and do not display it for oth..
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
72a0938
|
I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God.
|
|
god
john-piper
satisfaction
sin
|
John Piper |
|
67debc8
|
The task of all Christian scholarship--not just biblical studies--is to study reality as a manifestation of God's glory, to speak and write about it with accuracy, and to savor the beauty of God in it, and to make it serve the good of man. It is an abdication of scholarship when Christians do academic work with little reference to God. If all the universe and everything in it exist by the design of an infinite, personal God, to make his man..
|
|
glory-of-god
|
John Piper |
|
41b69c4
|
Our obedience is God's pleasure when it proves that God is our treasure. This is good news, because it means very simply that the command to obey is the command to be happy in God. The commandments of God are only as hard to obey as the promises of God are hard to believe. The Word of God is only as hard to obey as the beauty of God is hard to cherish.
|
|
god
obedience
|
John Piper |
|
1ccf629
|
This point is often missed by evangelical feminists. They conclude that a difference in function necessarily involves a difference in essence; i.e., if men are in authority over women, then women must be inferior. The relationship between Christ and the Father shows us that this reasoning is flawed. One can possess a different function and still be equal in essence and worth. Women are equal to men in essence and in being; there is no ontol..
|
|
gender-equality
|
John Piper |
|
b35a078
|
Our lives become trivial. And our capacity for magnificent causes and great worship dies.
|
|
trivial
|
John Piper |
|
79f3daf
|
we should all fortify ourselves against the dark hours of depression by cultivating a deep distrust of the certainties of despair. Despair is relentless in the certainties of its pessimism. But we have seen again and again, from our own experience and others', that absolute statements of hopelessness that we make in the dark are notoriously unreliable. Our dark certainties are not sureties.
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
81f5ad6
|
But to enjoy him we must know him. Seeing is savoring. If he remains a blurry, vague fog, we may be intrigued for a season. But we will not be stunned with joy, as when the fog clears and you find yourself on the brink of some vast precipice.
|
|
knowing-god
|
John Piper |
|
320c6b7
|
Will I find spiritual communion with God sweet enough, and hope in his promises deep enough, not just to cope, but to flourish and rejoice in him?
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
160b47b
|
I count myself as one of the number of those who learn as they write and write as they learn.
|
|
writing
|
John Piper |
|
7e5e3be
|
Preferring anything above Christ is the very essence of sin. It must be fought.
|
|
|
John Piper |
|
5785db0
|
God is most glorified when you are most satisfied in Him.
|
|
|
John Piper |