Background Image

...

James Says, "you Desire And Do Not Have; So You Kill" (jas. 4:2). We Kill Marriages And We Kill Unborn Babies Because They Cut Across Our Desires; They Stand In The Way Of Our Unencumbered Self-enhancement. And We Live In A Culture Where Self-enhancement And Self-advancement Is God. And If Self-enhancement Is God, Then The One Who Is At Work In The Womb Shaping A Person In His Own Image Is Not God And The Assault On His Work Is Not Sacrilegious, But Obedience To The God Of Self.

-John Piper

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

James Says, "you Desire

John Piper

...

James Says, "you Desire And Do Not Have; So You Kill" (jas. 4:2). We Kill Marriages And We Kill Unborn Babies Because They Cut Across Our Desires; They Stand In The Way Of Our Unencumbered Self-enhancement. And We Live In A Culture Where Self-enhancement And Self-advancement Is God. And If Self-enhancement Is God, Then The One Who Is At Work In The Womb Shaping A Person In His Own Image Is Not God And The Assault On His Work Is Not Sacrilegious, But Obedience To The God Of Self.

Views: 8

Topic

More From John Piper

In Colossians 2:12 And 1 Peter 3:21 Baptism Is An Expression Of The Faith Of The Person Being Baptized. I [do] Not See How An Infant Could Properly Receive This Ordinance As An Expression Of His Or Her Faith.

Jerusalem Meant One Thing For Jesus: Certain Death.

God Is Most Glorified In Us When We Are Most Satisfied In Him.

It Is Unbiblical And Arrogant To Try To Worship God For Any Other Reason Than The Pleasure To Be Had In Him.

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.

John's Baptism...was A Radical Act Of Individual Commitment To Belong To The True People Of God, Based On Personal Confession And Repentance... This Is One Of The Main Reasons That I Do Not Believe In Baptizing Infants, Who Cannot Make This Personal Commitment Or Confession Or Repentance. John's Baptism Was An Assault On The Very Assumptions That Give Rise To Much Infant Baptism.

Life Is Not A Straight Line Leading From One Blessing To The Next And Then Finally To Heaven. Life Is A Winding And Troubled Road. Switchback After Switchback. And The Point Of Biblical Stories Like Joseph And Job And Esther And Ruth Is To Help Us Feel In Our Bones (not Just Know In Our Heads) That God Is For Us In All These Strange Turns. God Is Not Just Showing Up After The Trouble And Cleaning It Up. He Is Plotting The Course And Managing The Troubles With Far-reaching Purposes For Our Good And For The Glory Of Jesus Christ.

The Wonder Of Marriage Is Woven Into The Wonder Of The Gospel Of The Cross Of Christ, And The Message Of The Cross Is Foolishness To The Natural Man, And So The Meaning Of Marriage Is Foolishness To The Natural Man.

My Paradise: With Christ. Not Sinning. No Pain. New Earth. Precious In That Order.

Abstraction Is The Way To The Heart - It Is Not The Heart Itself.

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. Until Your Heart Has Hit Upon This Pursuit Your 'faith' Cannot Please God. It Is Not Savng Faith. Saving Faith Is The Heartfelt Conviction Not Only That Christ Is Reliable, But Also That He Is Desirable.

Journaling Is A Way To Be A Good Steward Of The Spirit's Illuminations.

Don't Wait For A Feeling Or Love In Order To Share Christ With A Stranger. You Already Love Your Heavenly Father, And You Know That This Stranger Is Created By Him, But Separated From Him... So Take Those First Steps In Evangelism Because You Love God. It Is Not Primarily Out Of Compassion For Humanity That We Share Our Faith Or Pray For The Lost; It Is First Of All, Love For God.

I Feel A Special Calling To Impart Hope To The Church I Serve.

There Is A War Going On. All Talk Of A Christian's Right To Live Luxuriously "as A Child Of The King" In This Atmosphere Sounds Hollow - Especially Since The King Himself Is Stripped For Battle.

Christians Belive In A Sovereign God Who Never Says "oops". We Believe That All Our Days ... Are Divine Strokes On The Canvas Of Our Lives By The Master Artist Who Certified His Skill, His Power, And His Love In The Masterpiece Of Calvary. If You Doubt His Skill In Painting Your Life - Look At The Calvary

Avalanches Of Evil Begin With A Single Pebble Of Sin.

Marriage Is Not Mainly About Prospering Economically. It Is Mainly About Displaying The Covenant Keeping Love Between Christ And His Church

When God Is Our Deepest Pleasure We Display Him As Our Highest Treasure.

Marriage. The Roots Are Deep. The Covenant Is Solid. The Love Is Sweet. Life Is Hard. And God Is Good.

Not Going To God Because Your Faith Is Weak Is Like Not Going To The Doctor Because You Feel Sick.

Don’t Be Surprised. There Is Nothing New Under The Sun. Only Endless Repackagings

In Every Situation And Every Circumstance Of Your Life, God Is Always Doing A Thousand Different Things That You Cannot See And You Do Not Know.

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 Manifold Glory Known And Loved, Then To Treat Any Subject Without Reference To God’s Glory Is Not Scholarship But Insurrection.

It Has To Do With Seeing God. “blessed Are The Pure In Heart, For They Shall See God” (matthew 5:8).

Headship Is The Divine Calling Of A Husband To Take Primary Responsibility For Christlike, Servant Leadership, Protection, And Provision In The Home.

To Be A Christian Is To Move Toward Need, Not Comfort.

All Of History Is Moving Toward One Great Goal, The White-hot Worship Of God And His Son Among All The Peoples Of The Earth. Missions Is Not That Goal. It Is The Means. And For That Reason It Is The Second Greatest Human Activity In The World.

Desire That Your Life Count For Something Great! Long For Your Life To Have Eternal Significance. Want This! Don’t Coast Through Life Without A Passion.

Christian Inspirational

The Line Of Lovelessness Is Not Drawn Between Speaking And Doing, But Between Speaking And Doing In The Truth, And Speaking And Doing In Emptiness. Truth Turns Word-love Into Deed-love.

The Bible Does Not Oppose Or Forbid Interracial Marriages But Sees Them As A Positive Good For The Glory Of Christ.

So Saving Grace, Converting Grace, For Augustine, Is God's Giving Us A Sovereign Joy In God That Triumphs Over All Other Joys And Therefore Sways The Will. The Will Is Free To Move Toward Whatever It Delights In Most Fully, But It Is Not Within The Power Of Our Will To Determine What That Sovereign Joy Will Be.

Bad Theology Will Eventually Hurt People And Dishonor God In Proportion To Its Badness.

It Is About The Greatness Of God, Not The Significance Of Man. God Made Man Small And The Universe Big To Say Something About Himself.

The Deepest Need That You And I Have In Weakness And Adversity Is Not Quick Relief, But The Well-grounded Confidence That What Is Happening To Us Is Part Of The Greatest Purpose Of God In The Universe - The Glorification Of The Grace And Power Of His Son - The Grace And Power That Bore Him To The Cross And Kept Him There Until The Work Of Love Was Done.

Out Of The Freedom From Worry That God's Generosity Provides Comes An Impulse Toward Simplicity Rather Than Accumulation.

It Is A Myth That Man In His Natural State Is Genuinely Seeking God. Men Do Seek God. But They Do Not Seek Him For Who He Is. They Seek Him In A Pinch As One Who Might Preserve Them From Death Or Enhance Their Worldly Enjoyments. Apart From Conversion, No One Comes To The Light Of God.

Christian Fasting, At Its Root, Is The Hunger Of A Homesickness For God

So You Can See What Is Happening In The New Testament. Worship Is Being Significantly Deinstitutionalized, Delocalized, De-externalized. The Whole Thrust Is Being Taken Off Of Ceremony And Seasons And Places And Forms And Is Being Shifted To What Is Happening In The Heart - Not Just On Sunday But Every Day And All The Time In All Of Life.

God Is Not An Employer Looking For Employees. He Is An Eagle Looking For People Who Will Take Refuge Under His Wings.

The Greatest Act Of Freeing Happened When Jesus Died In Our Place And Paid Our Debt.

Darkness Comes. In The Middle Of It, The Future Looks Blank. The Temptation To Quit Is Huge. Don't. You Are In Good Company... You Will Argue With Yourself That There Is No Way Forward. But With God, Nothing Is Impossible. He Has More Ropes And Ladders And Tunnels Out Of Pits Than You Can Conceive. Wait. Pray Without Ceasing. Hope.

God Created Us With Sexual Passion So That There Would Be Language To Describe What It Means To Cleave To Him In Love And What It Means To Turn Away From Him To Others.

Christ Died That We Might Live. This Is The Opposite Of Abortion. Abortion Kills That Someone Might Live Differently.

You Get One Pass At Life. That’s All. Only One. And The Lasting Measure Of That Life Is Jesus Christ.

Whatever Opposes Prayer Opposes The Whole Work Of Ministry.

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

I See No Thread Running Through My Work; I Simply Get On With My Life And My Painting.

Wimpy Worldviews Make Wimpy Christians. And Wimpy Christians Won’t Survive The Days Ahead.

Where The Bible Is Esteemed As The Inspired And Inerrant Word Of God, Preaching Can Flourish. But Where The Bible Is Treated Merely As A Record Of Valuable Religious Insight, Preaching Dies.

We Are Far Too Easily Pleased.

Servanthood Does Not Nullify Leadership; It Defines It. Jesus Does Not Cease To Be The Lion Of Judah When He Becomes The Lamblike Servant Of The Church.

The Greatest Stumbling Block For Children In Worship Is That Their Parents Do Not Cherish The Hour. Children Can Feel The Difference Between Duty And Delight. Therefore, The First And Most Important Job Of A Parent Is To Fall In Love With The Worship Of God. You Can't Impart What You Don't Possess.

Falling In Love

The Key To Christian Living Is A Thirst And Hunger For God. And One Of The Main Reasons People Do Not Understand Or Experience The Sovereignty Of Grace And The Way It Works Through The Awakening Of Sovereign Joy Is That Their Hunger And Thirst For God Is So Small.

People Are Not Prepared Or Able To Rejoice In Suffering Unless They Experience A Massive Biblical Revolution Of How They Think And Feel About The Meaning Of Life. Human Nature And American Culture Make It Impossible To Rejoice In Suffering. This Is A Miracle In The Human Soul Wrought By God Through His Word.

Giving Is A Way Of Having What You Need.

We Weren't Meant To Be Somebody--we Were Meant To Know Somebody

Don't Marry So You Can Stop Pursuing Women. Marry So You Can Perfect The Pursuit Of One Woman For A Lifetime.

The Goal Of Missions Is The Gladness Of The Peoples In The Greatness Of God.

Sin Is What You Do When You Are Not Satisfied In God.

It Is Not Surprising That Prayer Malfunctions When We Try To Make It A Domestic Intercom To Call Upstairs For More Comforts In The Den.

When You See Jesus As Your Treasure, The Spirit Has Blown Through Your Heart.

You Don't Give God Authority Over Your Life. He Has It, Totally.

Evangelicals Are Distraught Over The State Of America Because They Have Not Been Taught That We're Aliens Here.

So, You Have Three Possibilities In World Missions. You Can Be A Goer, A Sender, Or Disobedient. The Bible Does Not Assume That Everyone Goes. But It Does Assume That The Ones Who Do Not Go Care About Goers And Support Goers And Pray For Goers And Hold The Rope Of The Goers.

Our Deeds Are Not The Basis Of Our Salvation, They Are The Evidence Of Our Salvation. They Are Not Foundation, They Are Demonstration.

The Meaning Of Mature Femininity: At The Heart Of Mature Felinity Is A Freeing Disposition To Affirm, Receive, And Nurture Strength And Leadership From Worthy Men In Ways Appropriate To A Woman's Differing Relationships.

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.

Why Does God Bless Us With Abundance? So We Can Have Enough To Live On And Then Use The Rest For All Manner Of Good Works That Alleviate Spiritual And Physical Misery. Enough For Us; Abundance For Others.

If You Are Sufficient For Your Task, It's Too Small.

We Are All Starved For The Glory Of God, Not Self. No One Goes To The Grand Canyon To Increase Self-esteem. Why Do We Go? Because There Is Greater Healing For The Soul In Beholding Splendor Than There Is In Beholding Self.

...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.

I Am Not A Missionary, But I Have Wanted My Life To Count For The Unreached Peoples Of The World.

Feeling Loved By God Means Feeling Glad Not Only That He Crushed His Son So That I Can Be Forgiven, But That He's Crushing Everything That Takes Away From My Praising Of The Glory Of His Grace.

Anger Devours Almost All Other Good Emotions. It Deadens The Soul. It Numbs The Heart To Joy And Gratitude And Hope And Tenderness And Compassion And Kindness.

God Is Infinitely Valuable. I Can't Think Of Anything That Would Have A Greater Impact On Your Life Than For You To Believe That.

If Gratitude Is Not Rooted In The Beauty Of God Before The Gift, It Is Probably Disguised Idolatry. May God Grant Us A Heart To Delight In Him For Who He Is So That All Our Gratitude For His Gifts Will Be The Echo Of Our Joy In The Excellency Of The Giver!

A Woman Who Fears The Lord Will Not Run Away From God To Satisfy Her Longings And Relieve Her Anxieties. She Will Wait For The Lord. She Will Hope In God. She Will Stay Close To The Heart Of God And Trust In His Promises. The Prospect Of Departing Into The Way Of Sin Will Be Too Fearful To Pursue; And The Benefits Of Abiding In The Shadow Of The Almighty Too Glorious To Forsake.

Every Christian Who Struggles With Depression Struggles To Keep Their Hope Clear. There Is Nothing Wrong With The Object Of Their Hope - Jesus Christ Is Not Defective In Any Way Whatsoever. But The View From The Struggling Christian's Heart Of Their Objective Hope Could Be Obscured By Disease And Pain, The Pressures Of Life, And By Satanic Fiery Darts Shot Against Them... All Discouragement And Depression Is Related To The Obscuring Of Our Hope, And We Need To Get Those Clouds Out Of The Way And Fight Like Crazy To See Clearly How Precious Christ Is.

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 Near To God Through Christ Alone.

The Inner Essence Of Worship Is Cherishing Christ As Gain - Indeed As More Gain Than All That Life Can Offer - Family, Career, Retirement, Fame, Food, Friends. The Essence Of Worship Is Experiencing Christ As Gain. Or To Use Words That We Love To Use Around Here: It Is Savoring Christ, Treasuring Christ, Being Satisfied With Christ.

He Shook My Dozing Soul And Threw The Cold Water Of Reality In My Face, So That Life And God And Heaven And Hell Broke Into My World With Glory And Horror. (on Cs Lewis)

James Says, "you Desire And Do Not Have; So You Kill" (jas. 4:2). We Kill Marriages And We Kill Unborn Babies Because They Cut Across Our Desires; They Stand In The Way Of Our Unencumbered Self-enhancement. And We Live In A Culture Where Self-enhancement And Self-advancement Is God. And If Self-enhancement Is God, Then The One Who Is At Work In The Womb Shaping A Person In His Own Image Is Not God And The Assault On His Work Is Not Sacrilegious, But Obedience To The God Of Self.

There Will Be No People In Heaven Who Want To Be Around Their Things More Than Jesus.

A Saving Knowledge Of Christ Crucified And Risen Is Not The Mere Result Of Right Reasoning About Historical Facts. It Is The Result Of Spiritual Illumination To See Those Facts For What They Really Are: A Revelation Of The Truth And Glory Of God In The Face Of Christ-who Is The Same Yesterday Today And Forever.

If You Alter Or Obscure The Biblical Portrait Of God In Order To Attract Converts, You Don't Get Converts To God, You Get Converts To An Illusion. This Is Not Evangelism, But Deception.

Sleep Is A Daily Reminder From God That We Are Not God. Once A Day God Sends Us To Bed Like Patients With A Sickness. The Sickness Is A Chronic Tendency To Think We Are In Control And That Our Work Is Indispensable. To Cure Us Of This Disease God Turns Us Into Helpless Sacks Of Sand Once A Day.

Seeing & Savoring Jesus Christ Is The Most Important Seeing And Savoring You'll Ever Do.

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.

If You Don't Feel Strong Desires For The Manifestation Of The Glory Of God, It Is Not Because You Have Drunk Deeply And Are Satisfied. It Is Because You Have Nibbled So Long At The Table Of The World. Your Soul Is Stuffed With Small Things, And There Is No Room For The Great.

The More Of God's Word You Know And Love, The More Of God's Spirit You Will Experience.

Gratitude Is The Joy That Arises In Response To God’s Good Will Toward Us In All His Gifts.

The Bible Is The Ultimate Authority And Infallible, Not The Pastor And Not The Elders. And It Doesn't Mean That You Believe Everything He Says Without Examining It.

The Essence Of Faith Is Being Satisfied With All That God Is For Us In Jesus.

You May Be Going Through Things Right Now That Are Painfully Preparing You For Some Precious Service To Jesus And To His People. When A Person Strikes Rock Bottom With A Sense Of Nothingness Or Helplessness, He May Find That He Has Struck The Rock Of Ages

Worship Is Ultimate, Not Missions. Because God Is Ultimate, Not Man.

Prayer Causes Things To Happen That Wouldn't Happen If You Didn't Pray.

In All The Setbacks Of Your Life As A Believer, God Is Plotting For Your Joy.

God Created Us To Live With A Single Passion: To Joyfully Display His Supreme Excellence In All Spheres Of Life. The Wasted Life Is The Life Without This Passion. God Calls Us To Pray And Think And Dream And Plan And Work, Not To Be Made Much Of, But To Make Much Of Him In Every Part Of Our Lives.

The Gospel Is The Good News That The Everlasting And Ever-increasing Joy Of The Never-boring, Ever-satisfying Christ Is Ours Freely And Eternally By Faith In The Sin-forgiving Death And Hope-giving Resurrection Of Jesus Christ.

We Do Not Choose Suffering Simply Because We Are Told To, But Because The One Who Tells Us To Describes It As The Path To Everlasting Joy.

There Is Hope In Forgiveness

Preaching Is The Pastor's Main Work, And Preaching Is Heart Work, Not Just Mental Work.

Missions Is Not The Ultimate Goal Of The Church. Worship Is. Missions Exists Because Worship Doesn't.

So The Main Question Is Not, Which Humans Brought About The Death Of Jesus But, What Did The Death Of Jesus Bring About For Humans - Including Jews And Muslims And Buddhists And Hindus And Nonreligious Secularists - And All People Everywhere?when It Is All Said And Done, The Most Crucial Question Is: Why? Why Did Christ Suffer And Die? Not Why In The Sense Of Cause, But Why In The Sense Of Purpose?

Spot The First Risings Of Your Besetting Sin And Kill It, Till It Is No More.

Bitterness About Your Parents’ Brokenness Will Kill You. Be The Grace-filled End Of Generational Sin In Your Family.

The Cost Of Food In The Kingdom Is Hunger For The Bread Of Life.

Pastors And Missionaries (need) To Know God And To Find In Him A Treasure More Satisfying Than Any Other Person Or Thing Or Relationship Or Experience Or Accomplishment In The World.

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 Is Not A Killjoy; He Just Opposes What Kills Joy.

Humble Us, O God, Under Your Mighty Hand, And Let Us Rise, Not As Professionals, But As Witnesses And Partakers Of The Sufferings Of Christ.

We Have Brought Nothing Into The World, So We Cannot Take Anything Out Of It Either.' There Are No U-hauls Behind Hearses.

How Do You Get From, "we Do Not Know Whether This Is Protectable Human Life," To "therefore, We Will Not Protect It?" Wouldn't The Logic Just As Likely (some Would Say Far More Likely) Be, "since We Do Not Know Whether This Is Protectable Human Life, Therefore We Will Protect It?" Why Does The Judicial Uncertainty About The Humanity Of The Unborn Lead To Unbridled License To Destroy It?

The Immensity Of His Worth Is Reflected In The Intensity Of Your Worship.

If At The Cross Every Sin Was Covered, Satan's Mouth Is Shut. He Has No Weapon. He Can Gum You But His Fangs Are Gone.

Doing Things In Secret That You Are Ashamed For Others To Know Is Practical Atheism. God's Knowing Doesn't Count?

The Abortion Industry Kills As Many Black People Every Four Days As The Klan Killed In 150 Years.

God Is Not Worn Out Running The Galaxy. He’s Not Taxed At All Guiding Every Dust Particle All The Time.

People Don't Enjoy Salt. They Enjoy What Is Salted. We Are The Salt Of The Earth. We Do Not Exist For Ourselves.

The Wisdom Of God Devised A Way For The Love Of God To Deliver Sinners From The Wrath Of God While Not Compromising The Righteousness Of God.

We Give Glory To God When We Trust Him To Do What He Has Promised To Do-especially When All Human Possibilities Are Exhausted. Faith Glorifies God. That Is Why God Planned For Faith To Be The Way We Are Justified.

Christ Did Not Die To Forgive Sinners Who Go On Treasuring Anything Above Seeing And Savoring God. And People Who Would Be Happy In Heaven If Christ Were Not There, Will Not Be There. The Gospel Is Not A Way To Get People To Heaven; It Is A Way To Get People To God. It's A Way Of Overcoming Every Obstacle To Everlasting Joy In God. If We Don't Want God Above All Things, We Have Not Been Converted By The Gospel.

Loving God With All Our Mind Means That Our Thinking Is Wholly Engaged To Do All It Can To Awaken And Express The Heartfelt Fullness Of Treasuring God Above All Things.

The Offspring Of The Woman, Jesus Christ, Came Into The World To Save Women Who Have Dethroned God, Taken His Place, Defined Personhood As Tissue, And Willed The Death Of Their Own Child. It Can't Be Reversed, But It Can Be Forgiven. That Is Why Christ Died.

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.

Grace Is The Pleasure Of God To Magnify The Worth Of God By Giving Sinners The Right And Power To Delight In God Without Obscuring The Glory Of God.

Forgiveness Costs Us Nothing. All Our Costly Obedience Is The Fruit, Not The Root, Of Being Forgiven. That's Why We Call It Grace.

The Highest Mental Health Is Not Liking Myself But Being Joyfully Interested In Everything But Myself.

God Is At Work In The Worst Of Times. He Is At Work Doing A Thousand Things No One Can See But Him.

Being Infinite, God Is Inexhaustibly Interesting. It Is Therefore Impossible That God Be Boring.

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.

God Took The Record Of All Your Sins-all Your Sexual Failures-that Made You A Debtor To Wrath, And Instead Of Holding Them Up In Front Of Your Face And Using Them As The Warrant To Send You To Hell, He Put Them In The Palm Of His Son’s Hand And Nailed Them To The Cross.

The Importance Of Prayer Rises In Proportion To The Importance Of The Things We Should Give Up In Order To Pray

The Gospel Is The News That Jesus Christ, The Righteous One, Died For Our Sins And Rose Again, Eternally Triumphant Over All His Enemies, So That There Is Now No Condemnation For Those Who Believe, But Only Everlasting Joy.

God Has Given Us Prayer As A Wartime Walkie-talkie So That We Can Call Headquarters For Everything We Need As The Kingdom Of Christ Advances In The World. Prayer Gives Us The Significance Of Front-line Forces, And Gives God The Glory Of A Limitless Provider. The One Who Gives The Power Gets The Glory. Thus Prayer Safeguards The Supremacy Of God In Missions While Linking Us With Endless Grace For Every Need.

The Murders Of Newtown Are A Warning To Me - And You. Not A Warning To See Our Schools As Defenseless, But To See Our Souls As Depraved. To See Our Need For A Savior. To Humble Ourselves In Repentance For The God-diminishing Bitterness Of Our Hearts. To Turn To Christ In Desperate Need, And To Treasure His Forgiveness, His Transforming, And His Friendship.

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. This Is What It Means To Be Created In The Image Of God.

All Of History Is Moving Toward One Great Goal, The White-hot Worship Of God And His Son Among All The Peoples Of The Earth. 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.

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.

Worship Is A Way Of Gladly Reflecting Back To God The Radiance Of His Worth.

Reflecting Back

God Made Us In His Own Image So That His Image Would Be Shown.

Life Is Precarious, And Life Is Precious. Don't Presume You Will Have It Tomorrow, And Don't Waste It Today.

Life Is Precious

All The Money Needed To Send And Support An Army Of Self-sacrificing, Joy-spreading Ambassadors Is Already In The Church.

Christ Is Glorified In You When He Is More Precious To You Than All That Life Can Give Or Death Can Take.

And In These Last Hours, The Lifetime Of This Year Passes Before My Eyes, And I Face The Inevitable Question: Did I Live It Well? Will Jesus Christ, The Righteous Judge, Say “well Done, Good And Faithful Servant”?

Only The #‎ Gospel Can Do Two Seemingly Contradictory Things: Destroy Pride And Increase Courage.

Isn't It Ironic That Today People Say, 'if You Know The Love Of God, You Don't Have To Worry When You Go On In Sin.' But The Apostle John Said, 'if You Know The Love Of God, You Won't Be Able To Go On In Sin.'

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.

Every Criticism Or Slight Against You, Warranted Or Not, Received Or Endured Humbly, Is Written In Heaven For Your Reward.

God Has Ordained That Our Preaching Become Deeper And More Winsome As We Are Broken, Humbled, And Made Low And Desperately Dependent On Grace By The Trials Of Our Lives.

The Call Of God Creates Sight In Us. It's The Work Of God In Our Hearts To Awaken Us Before His Word.

We Make A God Out Of Whatever We Find Most Joy In. So Find Your Joy In God And Be Done With All Idolatry.

Faith Stands Or Falls On The Truth That The Future With God Is More Satisfying Than The One Promised By Sin. Where This Truth Is Embraced And God Is Cherished Above All, The Power Of Sin Is Broken. The Power Of Sin Is The Power Of Deceit. Sin Has Power Through Promising A False Future. In Temptation Sin Comes To Us And Says: "the Future With God On His Narrow Way Is Hard And Unhappy, But The Way I Promise Is Pleasant And Satisfying." The Power Of Sin Is In The Power Of This Lie.

It Is Better To Lose Your Life Than To Waste It.

God Tests His People Through Hardship.

I Sometimes Fear That We Have So Redefined Conversion In Terms Of Human Decisions And Have So Removed Any Necessity Of The Experience Of God’s Spirit, That Many People Think They Are Saved When In Fact They Only Have Christian Ideas In Their Head Not Spiritual Power In Their Heart.

Love Is Doing What Will Enthrall The Beloved With The Greatest And Longest Joy. What Will Enthrall The Beloved This Way Is The Glory Of God. Love Means Doing All We Can, At Whatever Cost To Ourselves, To Help People Be Enthralled With The Glory Of God. When They Are, They Are Satisfied And God Is Glorified. Therefore Loving People And Glorifying God Are One.

Go, Send, Or Disobey.

Christian Inspirational

All Heroes Are Shadows Of Christ

Prosperity Cannot Be A Proof Of God's Favor, Since It Is What The Devil Promises To Those Who Worship Him. (matt. 4:9)

God Is Always Doing 10,000 Things In Your Life, And You May Be Aware Of Three Of Them.

If We Cannot Claim To Live Sinless Lives, Then The Only Thing That Can Keep Us From Despairing Before A Holy God Is That We Have An Advocate In Heaven And He Pleads Our Case Not On The Basis Of Our Perfection But Of His Propitiation.

I Do Not Appeal To You To Screw Up Your Courage And Sacrifice For Christ. I Appeal To You To Renounce All You Have To Obtain Life That Satisfies Your Deepest Longings.

We Do Not Smirk At The Misery Or The Merrymaking Of Immoral Culture. We Weep. Being Pilgrims Does Not Mean Being Cynical. The Salt Of The Earth Does Not Mock Rotting Meat. Where It Can, It Saves And Seasons. And Where It Can’t, It Weeps.

Whether Sexual Orientation Can Change Or Not, Hearts Can Change And Turn Any Sexual Orientation Into An Occasion For The Glory Of Christ. Those With Same-sex Attraction Glorify Christ Through Sexual Abstinence And Through The Enrichment Of Significant Christ-exalting Relationships In Other Ways.

Prayer As A Relationship Is Probably Your Best Indicator About The Health Of Your Love Relationship With God. If Your Prayer Life Has Been Slack, Your Love Relationship Has Grown Cold.

Love Relationship

There Are A Thousand Needs In The World, And None Of Them Compares To The Global Need For The Gospel.

Life Is Wasted If We Do Not Grasp The Glory Of The Cross, Cherish It For The Treasure That It Is, And Cleave To It As The Highest Price Of Every Pleasure And The Deepest Comfort In Every Pain. What Was Once Foolishness To Us—a Crucified God—must Become Our Wisdom And Our Power And Our Only Boast In This World.

Paradise Will Not Be A Hall Of Mirrors, It Will Be A Display Of Majesty, And It Won't Be Ours

The Chief End Of Missions Is The Supremacy Of God In The Joy Of All Peoples.

God Will Not Turn Away From Doing You Good. He Will Keep On Doing Good. He Doesn't Do Good To His Children Sometimes And Bad To Them Other Times. He Keeps On Doing Good And He Never Will Stop Doing Good For Ten Thousand Ages Of Ages. When Things Are Going Bad That Does Not Mean God Has Stopped Doing Good. It Means He Is Shifting Things Around To Get Them In Place For More Good, If You Will Go On Loving Him.

It Is Not Saving Faith To Confess Christ As True. Saving Faith Receives Christ As A Treasure.

Every Experience In Life Is Designed To Magnify The Cross Of Christ.

To Love God Passionately Is To Love Truth Passionately.

Some Of You Will Die In The Service Of Christ. That Will Not Be A Tragedy. Treasuring Life Above Christ Is A Tragedy.

He Has Made Me Wary Of Chronological Snobbery. That Is, He Showed Me That Newness Is No Virtue And Oldness Is No Vice. Truth And Beauty And Goodness Are Not Determined By When They Exist. Nothing Is Inferior For Being Old, And Nothing Is Valuable For Being Modern. This Has Freed Me From The Tyranny Of Novelty And Opened For Me The Wisdom Of The Ages.

Blind People Don't Decide To See. Jesus Says, 'see!' And They See.

The Gospel Is Not A Picture Of Adoption, Adoption Is A Picture Of The Gospel.

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.

Suffering And Death

"how Are You Doing?" - - - Better Than I Deserve.

In Demanding Our Praise God Is Demanding The Completion Of Our Pleasure (in Him).

We Have A Name For Those Who Try To Praise When They Have No Pleasure In The Object. We Call Them Hypocrites.

My Feelings Are Not God. God Is God. My Feelings Do Not Define Truth. God’s Word Defines Truth. My Feelings Are Echoes And Responses To What My Mind Perceives. And Sometimes - Many Times - My Feelings Are Out Of Sync With The Truth. When That Happens - And It Happens Every Day In Some Measure - I Try Not To Bend The Truth To Justify My Imperfect Feelings, But Rather, I Plead With God: Purify My Perceptions Of Your Truth And Transform My Feelings So That They Are In Sync With The Truth.

Do We Eagerly Long For The Coming Of Christ? Or Do We Want Him To Wait While Our Love Affair With The World Runs Its Course? That Is The Question That Tests The Authenticity Of Faith.

The Very Longing For Contentment That Ought To Drive Us To Simplicity Of Life And Labors Of Love Contents Itself Instead With The Broken Cisterns Of Prosperity And Comfort.

One Of The Great Enemies Of Hope Is Forgetting God's Promises.

Nothing Is More Vital Than Prayer In Christian Existence, And Few Things Are More Vulnerable To Neglect.

The Bible Says He Was Raised Not Just After The Blood-shedding, But By It. This Means That What The Death Of Christ Accomplished Was So Full And So Prefect That The Resurrection Was The Reward And Vindication Of Christ's Achievement In Death.

What Could Be A Greater Privilege Than To Listen To The Voice Of God, And Be Granted By God Himself The Ears To Hear?

What Is The Essence Of Evil? It Is Forsaking A Living Fountain For Broken Cisterns. God Gets Derision And We Get Death. They Are One: Choosing Sugarcoated Misery We Mock The Lifegiving God. It Was Meant To Be Another Way: God's Glory Exalted In Our Everlasting Joy.

If A Tornado Twists At 175 Miles An Hour And Stays On The Ground Like A Massive Lawnmower For 50 Miles, God Gave The Command.

Don't Ever Think That The Sin Of Your Past Means There Is No Hope For Your Future.

The Christian Life Becomes Impossible. That Is, It Becomes Supernatural.

Bad Theology Dishonors God And Hurts People. Churches That Sever The Root Of Truth May Flourish For A Season, But They Will Wither Eventually Or Turn Into Something Besides A Christian Church.

One Of The Most Important Discoveries I Have Ever Made Is This Truth: God Is Most Glorified In Me When I Am Most Satisfied In Him. This Is The Motor That Drives My Ministry As A Pastor. It Affects Everything I Do.

Mission Exists Because Worship Doesn't.

The Lord Is Kind. He Is Good To All Who Take Refuge Under His Wings.

Maintaining Joy In God Takes 'work'; That Is, It's A Fight Against Every Impulse For Alien Joys And Every Obstacle In The Way To Seeing And Savoring Christ.

You Don’t Have To Know A Lot Of Things For Your Life To Make A Lasting Difference In The World. But You Do Have To Know The Few Great Things That Matter, Perhaps Just One, And Then Be Willing To Live For Them And Die For Them. 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.

Trending Author

Category