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4b1027c
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Not to aim to show God is not to love, because God is what we need the most deeply. And to have all else without Him is to perish in the end.
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John Piper |
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e004970
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The really wonderful moments of joy in this world are not moments of self-satisfaction, but self-forgetfulness.
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John Piper |
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c422313
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Without a spiritual wakefulness to divine purposes and connections in all things, we will not know things for what they truly are.
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knowledge
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John Piper |
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6246715
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Pride is no respecter of persons. The serious thinkers may be humble, and the careless mystics may be arrogant.
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pride
thinking
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John Piper |
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b5641d8
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The Roman Emperor Julian, writing in the fourth century, regretted the progress of Christianity because it pulled people away from the Roman gods. He said, 'Atheism [I.e. the Christian faith!] has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers, and through their care for the burial of the dead. It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar, and that the godless Galileans care not only for their ow..
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John Piper |
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dbefabf
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The only life I have left to live is future life. The past is not in my hands to offer or alter. It is gone. Not even God will change the past. All the expectations of God are future expectations. All the possibilities of faith and love are future possibilities. And all the power that touches me with help to live in love is future power. As precious as the bygone blessings of God may be, if He leaves me only with the memory of those, and no..
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John Piper |
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03a1113
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The apex of glorifying God is enjoying Him with the heart. But this is empty emotionalism where that joy is not awakened and sustained by true views of God for who He really is
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John Piper |
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4c450d7
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The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.
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John Piper |
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863634d
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Legalism is a more dangerous disease than alcoholism because it doesn't look like one. Alcoholism makes men fail; legalism helps them succeed in the world. Alcoholism makes men depend on the bottle; legalism makes them self-sufficient, depending on no one. Alcoholism destroys moral resolve; legalism gives it strength. Alcoholics don't feel welcome in the church; legalists love to hear their morality extolled in church.
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John Piper |
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d2cce05
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The humility of wisdom is the happy consciousness that all things come from God, are sustained by God, and exist for God. This wisdom is rooted in the pride-destroying, joy-giving cross of Christ.
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humility
thinking
wisdom
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John Piper |
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5798f99
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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. So Lloyd-Jones gets specific and gets tough: The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address y..
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John Piper |
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e0e18c7
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When everything in life is stripped away except God, and we trust him more because of it, this is gain, and he is glorified.
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John Piper |
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In the end, the only 'good name' that matters is not how men feel about us, but how God feels about us.
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John Piper |
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b1c7512
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It isn't the size of the window that determines how much you see. It's which way the window is facing, and how close you are, and whether the glass is clear.
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John Piper |
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10cc418
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Enjoying and displaying are both crucial. The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.
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John Piper |
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dec3540
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God is willing and able to turn his judgements into joys . . . Don't ever think that the sin of your past means there is no hope for your future.
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hardships
sorrow
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John Piper |
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73f8311
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It is only a matter of time till the reality of the rest of the world comes home. And all the while we are called by Christ to go to them, love them, sacrifice for them, bring the gospel to them. The Great Commission is not child's play. It is costly. Very costly.
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John Piper |
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8a3b2fd
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Forgiveness is essentially God's way of removing the great obstacle to our fellowship with him. By canceling our sin and paying for it with the death of his own Son, God opens the way for us to see him and know him and enjoy him forever. Seeing and savoring him is the goal of forgiveness. Soul-satisfying fellowship with our Father is the aim of the cross. If we love being forgiven for other reasons alone, we are not forgiven, and we will wa..
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John Piper |
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dbbc59e
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God and God alone is the final, ultimate goal of our quest. All that God is for us in Jesus is the Object of our quest for joy. When I speak of fighting for joy, I mean joy in God, not joy without reference to God. When I speak of longing for happiness, I mean happiness in all that God is for us in Jesus, not happiness as physical or psychological experience apart from God.
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John Piper |
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8d67c19
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Jesus calls for violence against our own lust because he loves our true and lasting joy.
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John Piper |
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1d02e17
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God loves us by liberating us from the bondage of self so that we can enjoy knowing and admiring him forever.
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John Piper |
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cb073ea
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Knowledge about Him will not do. Work for Him will not do. We must have personal, vital fellowship with Him; otherwise, Christianity becomes a joyless burden.
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John Piper |
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ab004a0
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He loved us to the uttermost. And let us be so moved by this love that it becomes our own.
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John Piper |
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c513f16
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for poets, at least, experiencing something inexpressible does not mean silence. It's precisely the inexpressible something that poetry is meant to help us see or feel. If it were merely expressible - if there were nothing ineffable about it - there would be no need for a poem. But everywhere in the Bible we meet reality that exceeds our expectations.
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poetry
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John Piper |
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fa9b9cc
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Honoring Christ, magnifying Christ, making much of Christ. That was the meaning of Paul's life. It should be the meaning of ours. And Paul prays it will be the meaning of his death as well. We live and we die to make much of Christ.
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John Piper |
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0744d94
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When the glory of God is the treasure of our lives, we will not lay up treasures on earth, but spend them for the spread of his glory. We will not covet, but overflow with liberality. We will not crave the praise of men, but forget ourselves in praising God. We will not be mastered by sinful, sensual pleasures, but sever their root by the power of a superior promise. We will not will nurse a wounded ego or cherish a grudge or nurture a veng..
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John Piper |
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7ea0788
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Absolute statements of our unbelief that we make in the darkness are notoriously unreliable.
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despair
prospective
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John Piper |
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d2937ce
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We waste our lives when we do not pray and think and dream and plan and work toward magnifying God in all spheres of life. God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that he really is.
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John Piper |
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263e6d8
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Less extreme is the simple costliness in time and convenience and money and effort to replace excessive and addictive leisure with acts of servant love.
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John Piper |
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d9af9d6
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O, the lessons here for us! Name your discouraging setback--personal, political, scholarly, ecclesiastical, cultural, global. Dare any Christian say that God is not in this for the good of his people and the glory of his name? Not if our God is the God of Ezra! Do you think these setbacks are not without some great purpose of righteousness bigger and more stunning than any of us can imagine?
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John Piper |
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5a278bc
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Thus says the Lord: the meaning of Christmas is that what is good and precious in your life need never be lost, and what is evil and undesirable in your life can be changed. The fears that the few good things that make you happy are slipping through your fingers, and the frustrations that the bad things you hate about yourself or your situation can't be changed--these fears and these frustrations are what Christmas came to destroy. It is Go..
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John Piper |
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fd2ec65
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Therefore, at the heart of the meaning of work is creativity. If you are God, your work is to create out of nothing. If you are not God, but like God--that is, if you are human--your work is to take what God has made and shape it and use it to make him look great.
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John Piper |
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78c54f2
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Jesus is not honored most by the exploration of various christologies, any more than your wife would be honored by your indecision concerning her character. Jesus is honored by our knowing and treasuring him for who he really is. He is a real person. A fact. A fixed, unchanging reality in the universe, independent of our feelings. Our feelings about him do not make him what he is. Our feelings about him reflect the value of what we think he..
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John Piper |
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439c25f
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Christian Hedonism is a philosophy of life built on the following five convictions: The longing to be happy is a universal human experience, and it is good, not sinful. We should never try to deny or resist our longing to be happy, as though it were a bad impulse. Instead, we should seek to intensify this longing and nourish it with whatever will provide the deepest and most enduring satisfaction. The deepest and most enduring happiness is ..
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John Piper |
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fa4762e
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The only person in history who did not deserve to suffer, suffered most.
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John Piper |
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d536c60
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The supremacy of God in all things is the great reward we long for in fasting. His supremacy in our own affections and in all our life-choices. His supremacy in the purity of the church. His supremacy in the salvation of the lost. His supremacy in the establishing of righteousness and justice. And his supremacy for the joy of all peoples in the evangelization of the world.
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John Piper |
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eeae58b
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Love is helping people toward the greatest beauty, the highest value, the deepest satisfaction, the most lasting joy, the biggest reward, the most wonderful friendship, and the most overwhelming worship--love is helping people toward God.
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John Piper |
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cd6e82c
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God did not just overcome evil at the cross. He made evil serve the overcoming of evil. He made evil commit suicide in doing its worst evil.
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John Piper |
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be31ada
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Christians in the West are weakened by wimpy worldviews. And wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians.
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John Piper |
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af29bb0
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O, how easy it is to do religious things if other people are watching! Preaching, praying, attending church, reading the bible, acts of kindness and charity-they all take on a certain pleasantness of the ego if we know that others will find out about them and think well of us. It is a deadly addiction for esteem that we have.
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faith
prayer
pride
religion
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John Piper |
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0c76412
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I recall hearing one of my professors in seminary say that one of the best tests of a person's theology was the effect it has on one's prayers.
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theology
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John Piper |
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23c65cf
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One might think that those who feast most often on communion with God are least hungry. They turn often from the innocent pleasures of the world to linger more directly in the presence of God through the revelation of his Word. And there they eat the Bread of Heaven and drink the Living Water by meditation and faith. But, paradoxically, it is not so that they are the least hungry saints. The opposite is the case. The strongest, most mature ..
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John Piper |
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384be19
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Sin is what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God. No one sins out of duty. We sin because it holds out some promise of happiness. That promise enslaves us until we believe that God is more to be desired than life itself (Psalm 63:3).
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John Piper |
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629de4c
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My biggest concern about the effects of the prosperity movement is that it diminishes Christ by making him less central and less satisfying than his gifts.
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John Piper |