Quotes from John Piper

Nothing shows the direction of the deep winds of the soul like the demand for radical, sin-destroying, Christ-exalting joy in God.

We will not find a frustrated, gloomy, irritable Father who wants to be left alone, but a Father whose heart is so full of joy that it spills over unto all those (Christian Hedonists) who are thirty.

And I would just plead in passing—children, young people, and adults—see people with disabilities. And I don't mean see them like the priest and the Levite on the Jericho Road, passing by on the other side. This is our natural reflex—see and avoid. But we are not natural people. We are followers of Jesus. We have the Spirit of Jesus in our hearts. We have been seen and touched in all our brokenness by an attentive, merciful Savior.

The quickest way to the heart is through a wound.... Concealed sin keeps us from seeing the light of Christ.... Sin is like spiritual leprosy. It deadens your spiritual senses so that you rip your soul to shreds and don't even feel it.

The acid test of biblical God-centeredness-and faithfulness to the gospel-is this: Do you feel more loved because God makes much of you, or because, at the cost of his Son, he enables you to enjoy making much of him forever? Does your happiness hang on seeing the cross of Christ as a witness to your worth, or as a way to enjoy God's worth forever? Is God's glory in Christ the foundation of your gladness?

God does not intend to replace us when we are united to Christ; he intends to renew us and empower us and guide us.

Observe, It is our duty and privilege to rejoice in God, and to rejoice in him always; at all times, in all conditions; even when we suffer for him, or are afflicted by him. We must not think the worse of him or of his ways for the hardships we meet with in his service. There is enough in God to furnish us with matter of joy in the worst circumstance on earth. . . . Joy in God is a duty of great consequence in the Christian life; and Christians need to be again and again called to it

God] had respect to himself, as his last and highest end, in this work; because he is worthy in himself to be so, being infinitely the greatest and best of beings. All things else, with regard to worthiness, importance, and excellence, are perfectly as nothing in comparison of him. All that is ever spoken of in the Scripture as an ultimate end of God's works is included in that one phrase, the glory of God.

God is not looking for people to work for him, so much as he is looking for people ho will let him work for them. The gospel is not a Help Wanted ad. Neither is the call to to Christian service. On the contrary, the gospel commands us to give up and hang out a Help Wanted sign (this is the basic meaning of prayer). Then the gospel promises that God will work for us if we do. He will not surrender the glory of being the Giver.

Steve Halliday believed in the book from the beginning. If he hadn't asked to see the sermons in 1983, there may be no Desiring God.

The explanation of the blindness [in John 9] lies not in the past causes but the future purposes.

H]ealing displays the works of God in John 9, and sustaining grace displays the works of God in 2 Corinthians 12. What is common in the two cases is the supreme value of the glory of God. The blindness is for the glory of God. The thorn in the flesh is for the glory of God. The healing is for his glory, and the non-healing is for his glory. Suffering can only have ultimate meaning in relation to God.