John Piper Quotes

Tasks don't have to be high-impact to be worthy of high effort. Most things we do in any given day are relatively low impact. The cumulative impact of thousands of low-impact test is huge. These tasks can be transposed into worship.

Husbands and wives, recognize that in marriage you have become one flesh. If you live for your private pleasure at the expense of your spouse, you are living against yourself and destroying your joy. But 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.

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.

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.

Christmas cut history in two ages, the Age of Promise, and the Age of Fulfillment.

...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.

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.

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite forheaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is notthe X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality wedrink in every night.

Did you wake up feeling fragile? Read the bible till you find a promise strong enough to carry you through the day.

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.

It is better to lose your life than to waste it.

humility is beyond our reach. if it were a product of reaching, we would instinctively be proud of reaching it. it is a gift.

God is not an employer looking for employees. He is an Eagle looking for people who will take refuge under his wings. He is looking for people who will leave father and mother and homeland or anything else that may hold them back from a life of love under the wings of Jesus.

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.

Knowing and thinking exist for the sake of love -- for the sake of building people up in faith. Thinking that produces pride instead of love is not true thinking.

God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose.

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 and delight us fully and eternally, he must preserve for us the one thing that will satisfy us totally and eternally; namely, the presence and worth of his own glory. He alone is the source of full and lasting pleasure. Therefore, his commitment to uphold and display his glory is not vain, but virtuous. God is the one being for whom self-exaltation is an infinitely loving act. If he revealed himself to the proud and self-sufficient and not to the humble and dependent, he would belittle the very glory whose worth is the foundation of our joy. Therefore, God's pleasure in hiding this from "the wise and intelligent" and revealing it to "infants" is the pleasure of God in both his glory and our joy.

There is hope in forgiveness

Your mind was made to know and love God.

If death is no longer a fear, we're really free. Free to take any risk under the sun for Christ and for love.

Without a spiritual wakefulness to divine purposes and connections in all things, we will not know things for what they truly are.

I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start to call earth "home." Before you know it, I am calling luxeries "needs" and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin to forget the war. I don't think much about people perishing. Missions and unreached people drop out of my mind. I stop dreaming about the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mind-set that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced me again and again toward a wartime mind-set.

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. Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that He is desirable. It is the confidence that He will come through with His promises and that what He promises is more to be desired than all the world.

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.

We would do our theology better if more was at stake in what we said.

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.

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.

America is the first culture in jeopardy of amusing itself to death.

In other words, when all the supports of human life and earthly happiness are taken away, God will be our delight, our joy. This experience is humanly impossible. No ordinary person can speak in truth like this. If God alone is enough to support joy when all else is lost, it is a miracle of grace.

Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others

Here was an absolutely compelling road sign. Stay on the road of objective truth - there is objective being and objective value. Stay on the road. There is Truth. There is a Point and Purpose and Essence to it all. Keep searching. You will find it.

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him