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4369b1d
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If we are cut loose from the anchor of God's Word, we will not be free. We will be slaves of personal passions and popular trends.
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discipleship
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John Piper |
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61ccb64
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Humility is the flip side of giving God all the glory. Humility means reveling in his grace, not our goodness.
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John Piper |
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0088291
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Let the freedom to fail give you the hope to fight.
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hope
sin
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John Piper |
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6e444ea
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Christians do not just go to work. They go to work "with God". They do not just do a job. They do their job "with God"."
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John Piper |
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0a4edf2
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We will wait. We will wait till all is made righteous (glorious) according to the word of God.
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John Piper |
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21d31ab
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Both are manifestations of pride. Boasting is the response of pride to success. Self-pity is the response of pride to suffering. Boasting says, "I deserve admiration because I have achieved so much." Self-pity says, "I deserve admiration because I have sacrificed so much." Boasting is the voice of pride in the heart of the strong. Self-pity is the voice of pride in the heart of the weak. The reason self-pity does not look like pride is that..
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John Piper |
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c2f83fd
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To make them feel good about themselves when they were made to feel good about seeing God is like taking someone to the Alps and locking them in a room full of mirrors.
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John Piper |
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ed540bb
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In all of knowable reality, God is unique. He is knowable not like the multiplication table or the table of elements; he alone is knowable as the one totally in control of being known. He is not at the disposal of the human mind. He is known when he wills to be known. Yet he is known in and through created reality, which is known naturally. Therefore the glory of God is exalted most not when we know God apart from observation and reading an..
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faith
god
knowledge
revelation
study
truth
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John Piper |
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eb9e47a
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Part of what we pick up in looking at Jesus in the gospel is a way of viewing the whole world. That worldview informs all our values and deeply shapes our thinking and decision-making. Another part of what we absorb is greater confidence in Jesus' counsel and his promises. This has its own powerful effect on what we fear and desire and choose. Another part of what we take up from beholding the glory of Christ is greater delight in his fello..
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god
holiness
jesus-christ
sanctification
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John Piper |
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4563bfa
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Most of your unhappiness in life comes from the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself.
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depression
discipline
spiritual-warfare
thought-life
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John Piper |
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02e75e2
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At one level, the message of the book of Ruth is that the life of the godly is not a straight line to glory, but they do get there.
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John Piper |
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550f496
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If death is no longer a fear, we're really free. Free to take any risk under the sun for Christ and for love.
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death
faith
immortality
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John Piper |
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b2e8436
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Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?" (Hebrews 13:5-6)"
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jesus
peace
rock
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John Piper |
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fd0fbf0
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the mind was designed not to defend what we want, but to discover what is ultimately true, which should shape our wants and satisfy them more deeply with God. The purpose of the mind is not to rationalize subjective preferences, but to recognize objective reality and to help the heart revel in God.
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god
intellect
mind
objectivity
truth
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John Piper |
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f037e9c
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Once upon a time, there was a safe, private place to take your controversial stand for Jesus. No more. If you are going to stand, you will be shot at--either figuratively or literally.
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John Piper |
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81f4c1a
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But it would be a great mistake to think that the awakening of desire for the Bridegroom would produce a wave of monastic withdrawal into the fasting and prayer of passive waiting. That is not what the awakening of desire for Christ would produce. It would produce a radical, new commitment to complete the task of world evangelization, no matter what the cost. And fasting would not become a pacifistic discipline for private hopes, but a fear..
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John Piper |
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c1cbad0
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Long looking with admiration produces change. From your heroes you pick up mannerisms and phrases and tones of voice and facial expressions and habits and demeanors and convictions and beliefs. The more admirable the hero is and the more intense your admiration is, the more profound will be your transformation. In the case of Jesus, he is infinitely admirable, and our admiration rises to the most absolute worship. Therefore, when we behold ..
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god
joy
sanctification
worship
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John Piper |
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06c4b5e
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Hold your possessions so loosely that when they are lost in the sacrifices of love, your confidence in a supreme Treasure in heaven will fill you with joy.
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John Piper |
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9eae4e2
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The world will brin its condemnation. They may even put their sword behind it. But we know that the highest courst has already ruled in our favor. 'If God is for us, who can be against us?' (Romans 8:31) No one successfully If they reject us, he accepts us. If they hate us, he loves us. If they imprison us, he sets our spirits free. If they afflict us, he refines us by the fire. If they kill us, he makes it a passage to paradise. They canno..
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religion
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John Piper |
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b83e8d5
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Minimizing the importance of transformed feelings makes Christian conversion less supernatural and less radical. It is humanly manageable to make decisions of the will for Christ. No supernatural power is required to pray prayers, sign cards, walk aisles, or even stop sleeping around. Those are good. They just don't prove that anything spiritual has happened. Christian conversion, on the other hand, is a supernatural, radical thing. The hea..
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conversion
emotions
salvation
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John Piper |
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f731467
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The ultimate difference between God's wisdom and man's wisdom is how they relate to the glory of God's grace in Christ crucified. God's wisdom makes the glory of God's grace our supreme treasure. But man's wisdom delights in seeing himself as resourceful, self-sufficient, self determining, and not utterly dependent on God's free grace.
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wisdom
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John Piper |
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ba0f0b6
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When you are deeply peaceful and confident that, because of Christ, God will bring you safely to his eternal kingdom and be the all-satisfying Treasure of your life forever, then you are free to see the truth, and love the truth, and speak the truth no matter what, and joyfully spread a passion for the truth whose name is Jesus.
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John Piper |
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bd80beb
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Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper His people? Indeed! God increases our yield so that by giving we can prove that our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man's business so he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that thousands of unreached peoples can be reached with the gospel.
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giving
mission
missionary
money
wealth
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John Piper |
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0e87dde
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God has made us to be conduits of his grace. The danger is in thinking the conduit should be lined with gold. It shouldn't. Copper will do.
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gold
grace
lifestyle
stewardship
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John Piper |
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d0ac5d1
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all the evils in the world come not because our desires for happiness are too strong, but because they are so weak that we settle for fleeting pleasures that do not satisfy our deepest souls, but in the end destroy them. The root of all evil is that we are the kind of people who settle for the love of money instead of the love of God (1 Timothy 6:10).
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John Piper |
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7fa278f
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Banish professionalism from our midst, Oh God, an din its place put passionate prayer, poverty of spirit, hunger for God, rigorous study of holy things, white-hot devotion to Jesus Christ, utter indifference to all material gain, and unremitting labor to rescue the perishing, perfect the saints, and glorify our sovreign Lord. Humble us, O God, under your mighty hand, and let us rise, not as professionals, but as witnesses and partakers of ..
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John Piper |
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568a1a8
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God is glorified in his people by the way we experience him, not merely by the way we think about him. Indeed the devil thinks more true thoughts about God in one day than a saint does in a lifetime, and God is not honored by it. The problem with the devil is not his theology, but his desires. Our chief end is to glorify God, the great Object. We do so most fully when we treasure him, desire him, delight in him so supremely that we let good..
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John Piper |
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c6a570a
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Racial and ethnic segragtion is a gospel issue! Cephas' fear and wihdrawal from fellowship across ethnic lines was "not in step with the truth of the gospel." Christ had died to tear down this wall."
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John Piper |
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e99cf71
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The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing.
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John Piper |
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052f0d4
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Thus, when Paul says, "Praise the Lord all you nations, and let all the peoples extol him" (Rom. 15:11), he is saying that there is something about God that is so universally praiseworthy and so profoundly beautiful and so comprehensively worth and so deeply satisfying that God will find passionate admirers in every diverse people group in the world. His true greatness will be manifest in the breadth of the diversity of those who perceive a..
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John Piper |
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948a430
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The end of the creation is that God may communicate happiness to the creature
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John Piper |
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241baed
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God is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is the most loving thing. Anyone else who exalts himself distracts us from what we need, namely, God.
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John Piper |
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69a185a
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Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. With
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John Piper |
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49b6774
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DOING is often God's remedy for despair.
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discipleship
emotion
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John Piper |
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96f06a0
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God is not honored by groundless love. In fact, there is no such thing. If we do not know anything about God, there is nothing in our mind to awaken love. If love does not come from knowing God, there is no point in calling it love .
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knowledge
love
thinking
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John Piper |
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48681a3
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On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought.
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John Piper |
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16bd029
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The charge of blasphemy is loaded. The point is to pack a wallop behind the charge that in our worship services God simply doesn't come through for who he is. He is unwittingly belittled. For those who are stunned by the indescribable magnitude of what God has made, not to mention the infinite greatness of the One who made it, the steady diet on Sunday morning of practical how-to's and psychological soothing and relational therapy and tacti..
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John Piper |
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a40c7a9
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God created us in his image, male and female, with personhood and sexual passions, so that when he comes to us in this world there would be these powerful words and images to describe the promises and the pleasures of our covenant relationship with him through Christ.
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sex-and-the-supremacy-of-christ
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John Piper |
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a9fbbaa
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Well, God does not mean for us to be passive. He means for us to fight the fight of faith--the fight for joy. And the central strategy is to preach the gospel to yourself. This is war. Satan is preaching for sure. If we remain passive, we surrender the field to him.
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John Piper |
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280daaa
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But we also need stories. Great stories.
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John Piper |
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91810f3
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If anyone is going to see the gospel as true and good, satanic blindness and natural deadness must be overcome by the power of God. This is why the Bible says that even though the gospel foolishness to many, yet 'to those who are called...Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians 1:24). The 'calling' is the merciful act of God to remove natural deadness and satanic blindness, so that we see Christ as true and good. ..
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John Piper |
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b2992e1
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childlike wonder and awe have died. The scenery and poetry and music of the majesty of God have dried up like a forgotten peach at the back of the refrigerator.
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joy
simile
similes
worship
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John Piper |
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d9670f5
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We can draw no deadlines for God. He hastens or He delays as he sees fit. And his timing is all-loving toward his children. On, that we might learn to be patient in the hour of darkness. I don't mean that we make peace with darkness. We fight for joy. But we fight as those who are saved by grace and held by Christ. We say...that our night will soon- in God's good timing- turn to day.
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John Piper |
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21eb54c
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It seems to me that Christians in the West are being coddled. We suffer little in the name of Christ. Therefore, we read the Bible not with a desperate hunger for evidences of God's triumph in pain, but with a view to improving our private pleasures.
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John Piper |