Inspirational Quotes by John Piper
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
“if you devote yourself with all your heart to the holy joy of your spouse, you will also be living for your joy and making a marriage after the image of Christ and His church.”
“Theology is a means to enjoying and worshiping God, or it is useless.”
topics: intimacy-with-god
“I will give them a heart to know that I am The Lord." Jeremiah 24:7 He gives it at new birth, then again and again.”
“Oh, what a grand design! to make our joy the echo of your excellence. To make our pleasure proof that you now hold the place of Treasure in our lives. To make the gladness of our soul the essence of our worship, and the mirror of your worth. To make yourself most glorified in us, oh God, when we are satisfied in you. How could I, Lord, have ever been to so blind to think think that being loved by you means making much of me and not yourself?”
“Doing right for right's sake is atheistic.Christians should do what God says is right because in doing it we enjoy more of God.”
“Worship is nothing less than obedience to the command of God: "Delight yourself in the Lord"!”
“An eye for beauty instead of bleakness might have lightened some of his load.”
“We are most productive not when we seek to tightly control ourselves but when we seek to unleash ourselves. Productivity comes from engagement, not control and mere compliance. This is why operating in our strengths is so important.”
“It is not loving to impose our own grid onto others. We need to understand their situation and their needs accurately, and this comes from listening to them, not coming in with our own assumptions.”
“A lack of white space on one’s calendar correlates with a lack of white space in one’s brain.”3”
“the most unproductive thing of all is to make more efficient what should not be done at all.”
“The answer to our hyperkinetic digital world of diversions is the soul-calming sedative of Christ's splendor, beheld with the mind and enjoyed by the soul. The beauty of Christ calms us and roots our deepest longings in eternal hopes that are far beyond what our smartphones can ever hope to deliver.”
“we must die to the idea that a distraction-free life is possible—it is not, and it never has been. The holy life is piously complex, meaning we must learn how to apply distraction management in every situation.”
“Love must correct. Lloyd John Ogilvie writes, "Affirmation of people does not have to mean advocacy for their wrongful lifestyle or behavior." Affirmation labors to earn a platform from which to challenge wrongful lifestyles and be heard in doing so. "The Holy Spirit does not counsel us to have a flabby, indulgent attitude. Nor does He encourage us to buy into our age of appeasement and tolerance where everything is relative and there are no absolutes. However, the Holy Spirit shows us that any judgment of people's infractions of these absolutes must be done with indefatigable love and willingness to help them.”
“But it didn’t stay that way. Sin entered the world, and since then everything has been a mess. Our world is sick, and none of us are immune to the infection. At our cores we’re sinners. We purposely rebel against our Creator. We were made to be mirrors perfectly reflecting God’s goodness, but with sin that mirror was fractured and the reflection is distorted. Instead of following God, we assume we’re wiser and follow our own misguided intuition. We’re choosing what we think will make us happy, but in the process we’ve made God angry. He despises sin and He will judge us for it. We’re beautifully made, but tragically broken.”
“He loves using lackluster ingredients, because doing so makes it clear where the true credit should go.”
“There were afternoons I put my elbows on my desk, face in my hands, and wept over the theological confusion in my head. I think that is the price of dismantling joy-defeating doctrines. It is ironic that so many tears should be shed on the way to the fullness of joy. But that’s the way it is. Truth must make room for itself. And that may mean demolishing the mental tenements where you have lived comfortably for a long time.”
“One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”
“The prerequisite for being in authority is recognizing that one is always under authority.”
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John Piper (1946 - Present)
is a Calvinistic Baptist Christian preacher and author currently serving as Pastor for Preaching and Vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His books include ECPA Christian Book Award winners Spectacular Sins, What Jesus Demands from the World, Pierced by the Word, and God's Passion for His Glory, and bestsellers Don't Waste Your Life and The Passion of Jesus Christ. The evangelical organization Desiring God is named for his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (1986).In 1980, after what he described as an "irresistible call of the Lord to preach", Piper became Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he has been ministering ever since. Piper hit the evangelical scene after the publication of his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (1986) and has continued to publish dozens of other books further articulating this theological perspective. In 1994, he founded Desiring God Ministries, which provides all of Piper's sermons and articles from the past three decades, and most of his books online free of charge, as well as offering for sale books, CDs, and DVDs and regularly hosting conferences.
John Stephen Piper is a Reformed and Baptist theologian, preacher, and author, currently serving as Pastor for Preaching and Vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is the author of numerous books.
Piper's motto in ministry, preaching, and teaching is: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." He calls those who live out this motto Christian Hedonists. Piper places a heavy emphasis on the objective and absolute nature of truth and is confident in the Christian's ability to grasp that truth through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.