John Piper
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“Joy is nothing else but the satisfaction of the reasonable soul in its union with an object which it loved and desired.” Poole’s Commentary on John 15:11
“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”
“Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning,
they have become to him altars for sinning.” Hosea 8:11
This is not redundant.
If you build a stairway to the cellar of temptation, you will very likely descend.
“They do not cry to me from the heart,
but they wail upon their beds;
for grain and wine they gash themselves;
they rebel against me.” Hosea 7:14
Not all wailing is the wailing of repentance. Tears over the consequences of evil are not tears over evil.
“He stretches out the north over the void
and hangs the earth on nothing.
Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways;
how small a whisper do we hear of him!” Job 26:7, 14
If the planets are a whisper, someday in Christ we will be given ears to bear the beauty of the shout.
Registration just opened for CROSS CON24 — a conference for 18–25 year olds and their leaders. This is my favorite conference to be a part of. It is so close to what is ultimate. Christ. Cross. Church. Nations. God’s glory. I invite you to come. Or send. crosscon.com
“Uneducated people are not irrational people. I have found that they will endure, and can follow, quite a lot of sustained argument if you go slowly. Often, indeed, the novelty of it (for they have seldom met it before) delights them.” —C. S. Lewis
“They do not consider
that I remember all their evil.
Now their deeds surround them;
they are before my face.” Hosea 7:2
If God should make a way for himself to forget the 10,000 guilty acts of our minds, what would be the cost? With what could they be covered out of sight?
“Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” Revelation 2:10
This is the gift of Christianity to the world of the 21st century. As in every century.
“In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). Then death. After that a crown of life.
“Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind up. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord.” Hosea 6:1, 3
There is never a point, whether torn or healed, when we no longer need to press on to know the Lord.
Jesus said to the dumbstruck John, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” Revelation 1:17–18
Fear not, if you die for me, I will unlock death and bring you out.
“The children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.” Hosea 3:5
Let us love Israel this way: praying, hoping, testifying that they return to their Messiah, Jesus.
“Israel said, ‘I will go after my lovers
who give me bread and water.’
She did not know
it was I, the Lord, who gave her
grain, and wine, and oil,
who lavished on her silver and gold,
which they used for Baal.” Hosea 2:5, 8
It is a fearful thing to make a cuckold out of God.
“Behold, Jesus is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him; all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.” Revelation 1:7
All tribes will worship (Ps. 22:27). All tribes will wail. The Great Commission finished does not mean every soul in every tribe will be saved.
“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” Revelation 1:5–6
“Loves.” Not just “loved.”
Now. Today. From heaven. With all glory and dominion.
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” John 14:6
Why are so many people who reject Jesus as the way and the truth and the life so hesitant to call him the egomaniac he must be if they are right?
“If you lay gold in the dust, the Almighty will be your gold. For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty and lift up your face to God.” Job 22:24–26
This is true.
But Eliphaz was wrong to preach this to Job.
Holding on by his fingernails, gold was not his problem.
“The steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.” Psalm 103:17–18
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
Christian, the new you inhales Christ and exhales trust.
“O Daniel, at the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved.” Daniel 9:22–23
“Because of the great love with which he loved us, God made us alive together with Christ.” Ephesians 2:4–5
"Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit.”
Psalm 103:1–2 
“Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.” Daniel 7:10
With this, God condescends to give us a trace of what it will be like to stand before him and give an account of our life. 100,000,000 sinless watchers.
“They have gone out for the sake of the name [of Jesus]. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.” 3 John 1:7–8
Is it not a gracious and wonderful thing that our financial support is counted as a share in the force of truth.
“There are no graduates in the school of human pain.” —Margaret Clarkson
Not in this life.
“The end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever.” Daniel 4:34
The Godward look.
The return of reason.
The heart of praise.
“You shall be made to eat grass like an ox . . . till you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” Daniel 4:25
“Nebuchadnezzar said, ‘Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.’” Daniel 3:28
Yielded up their bodies.
My wife and I read these Advent Devotions and were moved to worship Jesus with each one. May I recommend David Mathis' "The Christmas We Didn't Expect" for your heart's preparation to make much of Christ this Christmas.
wtsbooks.com/products/the-c…
“Our God is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.
“But if not, be it known to you that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” Daniel 3:17–18
Burned or delivered, we worship him.
“These men, O king Nebuchadnezzar, pay no attention to you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” Daniel 3:12
There is one Lord. One God. One worship. And it is not this pitiful 90-foot statue that can barely be seen from the clouds.
“The Lord has kindled his wrath against me and counts me as his adversary.” Job 19:11
No, Job. That is not what your suffering means.
“The Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.” Proverbs 3:12
"Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God." 2 John 1:9
The teachings of Christ do not evolve.
They are a rock.
Not a sand dune morphing with the desert wind.
“Blessed be the name of God
to whom belong wisdom and might.
He changes times and seasons;
he removes kings and sets up kings.” Daniel 2:20–21
Biden, Putin, Zelenskyy, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un are all little dabs on the millennia-wide canvass of God’s might and wisdom.
“The wicked man writhes in pain all his days.” Job 15:20
No, Eliphaz, you know this is not true. The truth you see (that God is for the righteous and against the wicked) has been distorted in your zeal to censure Job’s missteps. You have both become careless with your words.
“Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist. . . . Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” 1 John 4:3–4
It is an awesome thing to be a Christian.
“Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out.’ The man who had died came out.” John 11:43–44
It will not tax the omnipotence of Jesus one day to empty every grave with a word.
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” 1 John 3:16
Know love.
Receive love.
Give love.
“Thus says the Lord: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name.” Ezekiel 36:22
It is ominous how many Christians do not love God’s zeal for God. What have they desired God to do in praying, “Hallowed be thy name”?
“Because you did not hate bloodshed, therefore blood shall pursue you.” Ezekiel 35:6
There are things to be hated. And the failure to hate them brings judgment.
“Let the Nations be Glad” turns 30 this year. So Tony Reinke and I talked about the labor pains that gave it birth.
desiringgod.org/interviews/let…
“Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe.’” John 11:14–15
If he had been there, he could have healed him. Would that not have served their faith?
Jesus knows which death and which miracles serve best.
“God takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth.” Job 12:24
When a person does not “welcome a love of the truth” God often confirms this hostile heart with illusions (2 Thessalonians 2:10).
“Who among all [creation] does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” Job 12:9–10
Hence Job 1:21, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.”
“This is the promise that he made to us—eternal life.” 1 John 2:25
Such simple words.
Such familiar words.
Such fear-of-death-defeating, peace-giving, life-liberating, love-empowering, mission-dream-awakening words.
Eternal life!
“It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” John 10:33
So, being God, he escaped their hands, and gave his life according to his own plan, not theirs.
“No one who denies the Son has the Father.” 1 John 2:23
So let us say with Paul: It is my eager hope that Christ, the Son, be magnified in my body, whether by life or death.
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might be plain that they all are not of us.” 1 John 2:19
“Of us” = truly born of God, a new creation, new heart, part of the one new people.
Jesus: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.” John 10:17
The Father’s love for the Son is never unconditional. It is eternally, infinitely, gloriously, pervasively conditional upon the beautiful perfections of the Son.
If you’ve heard criticisms of my book “What Is Saving Faith?” and wonder about my response, you can read some of it here. Thanks to the folks at TGC for letting me respond.
thegospelcoalition.org/article/john-p…
“You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.” Job 10:12
First breath, and every breath, a gift of love.
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