We can say that true gratitude does not give rise to the debtor's ethic because it gives rise to faith in future grace. With true gratitude there is such a delight in the worth of God's past grace, that we are driven on to experience more and more of it in the future...it is done by transforming gratitude into faith as it turns from contemplating the pleasures of past grace and starts contemplating the promises of the future.
John PiperChrist died that we might live. This is the opposite of abortion. Abortion kills that someone might live differently.
John PiperThere is a warning. The path of God-exalting joy will cost you your life. Jesus said, โWhoever loses his life for my sake and the gospelโs will save it.โ In other words, it is better to lose your life than to waste it. If you live gladly to make others glad in God, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full. This is not a book about how to avoid a wounded life, but how to avoid a wasted life. Some of you will die in the service of Christ. That will not be a tragedy. Treasuring life above Christ is a tragedy.
John PiperCHRISTIAN LIVING MOVES from what God has freely done for us in Christ to what we should freely do for others.
John PiperAll the different ways God has chosen to display his glory in creation and redemption seem to reach their culmination in the praises of his redeemed people. God governs the world with glory precisely that he might be admired, marvelled at, exalted and praised. The climax of his happiness is the delight he takes in the echoes of his excellence in the praises of the saints.
John Piper