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1 " Life is not a straight line leading from one blessing to the next and then finally to heaven. Life is a winding and troubled road. Switchback after switchback. And the point of biblical stories like Joseph and Job and Esther and Ruth is to help us feel in our bones (not just know in our heads) that God is for us in all these strange turns. God is not just showing up after the trouble and cleaning it up. He is plotting the course and managing the troubles with far-reaching purposes for our good and for the glory of Jesus Christ. "
― John Piper , A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God
2 " ... the mind was designed not to defend what we want, but to discover what is ultimately true, which should shape our wants and satisfy them more deeply with God. The purpose of the mind is not to rationalize subjective preferences, but to recognize objective reality and to help the heart revel in God. "
― John Piper , The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's Delight in Being God
3 " Here was an absolutely compelling road sign. Stay on the road of objective truth - there is objective being and objective value. Stay on the road. There is Truth. There is a Point and Purpose and Essence to it all. Keep searching. You will find it. "
― John Piper
4 " In all of knowable reality, God is unique. He is knowable not like the multiplication table or the table of elements; he alone is knowable as the one totally in control of being known. He is not at the disposal of the human mind. He is known when he wills to be known. Yet he is known in and through created reality, which is known naturally. Therefore the glory of God is exalted most not when we know God apart from observation and reading and study, but when we know God as a result of his free and gracious self-revelation in and through our earnest observation of and meditation on his work and Word in history. "
5 " What 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. "
6 " God is not an employer looking for employees. He is an Eagle looking for people who will take refuge under his wings. He is looking for people who will leave father and mother and homeland or anything else that may hold them back from a life of love under the wings of Jesus. "
7 " The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite forheaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is notthe X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality wedrink in every night. "
― John Piper , A Hunger for God
8 " . . . the only legitimate reason that kingship is not attractive to us is because in this age and this world the only kings available are finite and sinful. Listen to C. S. Lewis describe why he believes in democracy:A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. . . I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. . . . The real reason for democracy is . . . Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.1If there could be a king who is not limited in his wisdom and power and goodness and love for his subjects, then monarchy would be the best of all governments. If such a ruler could ever rise in the world—with no weakness, no folly, no sin—then no wise and humble person would ever want democracy again.The question is not whether God broke into the universe as a king. He did. The question is: What kind of king is he? What difference would his kingship make for you? "
9 " It was becoming clearer and clearer that if I wanted to come to the end of my life and not say, “I’ve wasted it!” then I would need to press all the way in, and all the way up, to the ultimate purpose of God and join him in it. If my life was to have a single, all-satisfying, unifying passion, it would have to be God’s passion. "
― John Piper , Don't Waste Your Life
10 " God 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. "
11 " The greatest cause in the world is joyfully rescuing people from hell, meeting their earthly needs, making them glad in God, and doing it with a kind, serious pleasure that makes Christ look like the Treasure he is. "
12 " Our obedience is God's pleasure when it proves that God is our treasure. This is good news, because it means very simply that the command to obey is the command to be happy in God. The commandments of God are only as hard to obey as the promises of God are hard to believe. The Word of God is only as hard to obey as the beauty of God is hard to cherish. "
13 " Without a spiritual wakefulness to divine purposes and connections in all things, we will not know things for what they truly are. "
14 " The only people who soul can truly magnify the Lord are...people who acknowledge their lowly estate and are overwhelmed by the condescension of the magnificent God. "
― John Piper , Good News of Great Joy: Daily Readings for Advent
15 " Your mind was made to know and love God. "
16 " The evil and suffering in this world are greater than any of us can comprehend. But evil and suffering are not ultimate. God is. Satan, the great lover of evil and suffering, is not sovereign. God is. "
― John Piper , Suffering and the Sovereignty of God
17 " humility is beyond our reach. if it were a product of reaching, we would instinctively be proud of reaching it. it is a gift. "
18 " The ultimate difference between God's wisdom and man's wisdom is how they relate to the glory of God's grace in Christ crucified. God's wisdom makes the glory of God's grace our supreme treasure. But man's wisdom delights in seeing himself as resourceful, self-sufficient, self determining, and not utterly dependent on God's free grace. "
― John Piper , Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God
19 " The end of the creation is that God may communicate happiness to the creature "
20 " There is hope in forgiveness "
