The assurance of the believer is not that God will save him even if he stops believing, but that God will keep him believing--God will sustain you in faith, he will make your hope firm and stable to the end. He will cause you to persevere.
John PiperIf a tornado twists at 175 miles an hour and stays on the ground like a massive lawnmower for 50 miles, God gave the command.
John PiperThe gospel of God and the love of God are expressed finally and fully in God's gift of himself for our everlasting pleasure. "In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
John PiperThe critical question for our generation—and for every generation— is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?
John PiperThere will be no passion to draw others into our worship where there is no passion for worship.
John PiperNothing makes God more supreme and more central in worship than when a people are utterly persuaded that nothing - not money or prestige or leisure or family or job or health or sports or toys or friends - nothing is going to bring satisfaction to their sinful, guilty, aching hearts besides God.
John PiperThe bloodline of Jesus is thicker, deeper, stronger than the bloodline of race, ethnicity and family.
John PiperHusbands are not Christ. But they are called to be like him. And the specific point of likeness is the husband's readiness to suffer for his wife's good without threatening or abusing her. This includes suffering to protect her from any outside forces that would harm her, as well as suffering disappointments of abuses even from her. This kind of love is possible because Christ died for both husband and wife. Their sins are forgiven. Neither needs to make the other suffer for sins. Christ has borne that suffering. Now as two sinful and forgiven people we can return good for evil.
John PiperDo you feel loved by God because you believe he makes much of you, or because you believe he frees you and empowers you to enjoy making much of him?
John PiperOur lives become trivial. And our capacity for magnificent causes and great worship dies.
John PiperWhat is sin? It is the glory of God not honored. The holiness of God not reverenced. The greatness of God not admired. The power of God not praised. The truth of God not sought. The wisdom of God not esteemed. The beauty of God not treasured. The goodness of God not savored. The faithfulness of God not trusted. The commandments of God not obeyed. The justice of God not respected. The wrath of God not feared. The grace of God not cherished. The presence of God not prized. The person of God not loved. That is sin.
John PiperWaiting for the Lord in a season of darkness should not be a time of inactivity. We should do what we can do. And doing is often God's appointed remedy for despair.
John PiperBad 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.
John PiperYou 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.
John PiperLife is precarious, and life is precious. Don't presume you will have it tomorrow, and don't waste it today.
John PiperWhat could be a greater privilege than to listen to the voice of God, and be granted by God himself the ears to hear?
John PiperGreat waves, and blaze with fire like them.In beauty, but do not condemn,The seamen who embark and fail,But only those who will not sail.
John PiperThe really wonderful moments of joy in this world are not the moments of self-satisfaction, but self-forgetfulness. Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and contemplating your own greatness is pathological. At such moments we are made for a magnificent joy that comes from outside ourselves.
John PiperYou have to decide what those issues are for you. What do you think disqualifies a person from holding public office? I believe that the endorsement of the right to kill unborn children disqualifies a person from any position of public office. It's simply the same as saying that the endorsement of racism, fraud, or bribery, would disqualify him - except that child-killing is more serious than those.
John PiperIt is not saving faith to confess Christ as true. Saving faith receives Christ as a Treasure.
John PiperParadise will not be a hall of mirrors, it will be a display of majesty, and it won't be ours
John PiperGod did not just overcome evil at the cross. He made evil serve the overcoming of evil. He made evil commit suicide in doing its worst evil.
John PiperA 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.
John PiperYou get one pass at life. That’s all. Only one. And the lasting measure of that life is Jesus Christ.
John PiperGod 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.
John PiperIf you want to be a conduit for God's grace, you don't have to be lined with gold. Copper will do.
John PiperFeeling 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.
John PiperGod 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.
John PiperDon't marry so you can stop pursuing women. Marry so you can perfect the pursuit of ONE woman for a lifetime.
John PiperWhy Christians do what they do is just as important as what they do. Bad motives ruin good acts.
John PiperIf my life was to have a single, all-satisfying, unifying passion, it would have to be God's passion.
John PiperAnd 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”?
John PiperLove is the overflow of joy in God! It is not duty for duty's sake, or right for right's sake. It is not a resolute abandoning of one's own good with a view solely to the good of the other person. It is first a deeply satisfying experience of the fullness of God's grace, and then a doubly satisfying experience of sharing that grace with another person.
John PiperServanthood 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.
John PiperJohn'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.
John Piper