Quotes from John Piper

He once said that "there are but two lessons for Christians to learn: the one is, to enjoy God in everything; the other is, to enjoy everything in God.

The key to praying with power is to become the kind of persons who do not use God for our ends but are utterly devoted to being used for his ends

Emotions are like a river flowing out of one's heart. Form is like the riverbanks. Without them the river runs shallow and dissipates on the plain. But banks make the river run deep. Why else have humans for centuries reached for poetry when we have deep affections to express? The creation of a form happens because someone feels a passion. How ironic, then, that we often fault form when the real evil is a dry spring.

We were made to find our deepest pleasure in admiring what is infinitely admirable, that is, the glory of God. The glory of God is not the psychological projection of human longing onto reality. On the contrary, inconsolable human longing is the evidence that we were made for God's glory.

C. J. Mahaney, are a good reminder: "Your greatest need is not a spouse. Your greatest need is to be delivered from the wrath of God—and that has already been accomplished for you through the death and resurrection of Christ. So why doubt that God will provide a much, much lesser need? Trust His sovereignty, trust His wisdom, trust His love.

If our effort to know God more clearly is not an effort to love him more dearly, it will be fatal.

If prayer is not for gratifying natural desires but for Christ-exalting fruit-bearing, the major challenge in praying is to become the kind of person who is not dominated by natural desires, but by spiritual fruit-bearing desires

Edwards was persuaded from Scripture that "gracious affections do not tend to make men bold, forward, noisy, and boisterous; but rather to speak trembling."41 The eye of divine blessing is upon the meek and trembling: "This is the one to whom I will look [says the Lord]: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word" (Isa. 66:2).

That is my prayer for you this Christmas—that you would experience the fullness of Christ; that you would know in your heart the outpouring of grace upon grace; that the glory of the only Son from the Father would shine into your heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ; that you would be amazed that Christ can be so real to you.

God is not glorified if the foundation of our gratitude for the gospel is the worth of its gifts and not the value of the Giver. If gratitude for the gospel is not rooted in the glory of God beneath the gift of God, it is disguised idolatry. May God grant us a heart to see in the gospel the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. May he grant us to delight in him for who he is, so that all our gratitude for his gifts will be the echo of our joy in the excellency of the Giver!

The End for Which God Created the World

Preaching is one thing—and it is crucial. But hearing is another thing—and it is just as crucial.