Welcome: An Introduction

Sharing the insights I discover as I explore and experience the mystery that is our reality. Join me in my journey and share yours.




John Piper Quotes

John Piper is a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is also a highly respected theologian and author of more than 30 books, many of which I have found personally enlightening, inspiring and engaging. I don't always agree with every theological view he has but woven into what seems every fiber of Piper's being is an intense passion and desire to know and glorify God. I love his enthusiasm and passion for God! If only all God's children sought God so earnestly, this world would look a lot different!

So below, are a collection of quotes I have taken notes of while reading his works (some include page numbers, some don't, depending on if I noted them down at the time). As with all my pages of quotes this page is continually evolving, for I will be returning to it as I find new quotes to add. Right now it only includes quotes from one of his works...I have read several!  Anything put in bold is my emphasis, to make it hopefully easier to have your eye catch a topic that you might be looking for.

May you enjoy them! His website is http://www.desiringgod.org/




Quotes from What Jesus Demands of the World



But what is ultimate is that in our obedient lives God be displayed as the most beautiful reality in the world.
p. 18


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Luke 11:23 Whoever does not gather with me scatters.
"There are no neutral followers, we either scatter or father. Following Jesus means continuing the work he came to do gathering a people in allegiance to him for the glory of his Father.
p. 70


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If you follow Jesus only because he makes life easy now, it will look to the world as though you really love what they love, and Jesus just happens to provide it for you. But if you suffer with Jesus in the pathway of love because he is your supreme treasure, then it will be apparent to the world that your heart is set on a different future than theirs.
p. 71


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There may be either good things that we may rightly treasure in some measure. But we may not treasure them in the place of God. We may only treasure them as expression of treasuring God. If one of our human capacities finds pleasure in anyone or anything in such a way that this pleasure is not also a delight in God, then we have not loved God with all that capacity.
p. 81


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Regarding Luke 19:27, Piper writes, " Again the picture is not one of hell as a disease resulting from bad habits, but of a king expressing holy wrath against those who rebuff his gracious rule.
p. 94


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Give heed to Jesus' clear demand to fear the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Hear it as a great mercy. What a wonderful thing it is that Jesus warns us. He does not leave us ignorant of the wrath to come. He not only warns us. He rescues. That is the best effect of fear: It awakens our need for help and points us to the all-sufficient redeemer, Jesus. Let it have this effect on you.


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Prayer is designed by God to display His fullness and our need. Prayer glorifies God because it puts us in the position of the thirsty and God in the position of the all-supplying fountain. Prayer is designed as a way of relating to God, so that it is clear we get the help and He gets the glory.


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The disciple moves from poverty of spirit to childlike trust in God's grace to a heart of servanthood and acts of service.


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This... is the root of humility- that we deserve nothing good from God. Or to put it another way, "everything good we get from God is mercy."


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The joy of the humble does not reside in being deserving, but in receiving mercy.
p. 129


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 Even though we are fallible and may need correction, we should unashamedly go and make disciples of all nations.


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How shall this insidious motive of pleasure in being made much of be broken except through bending all my faculties to delight in the pleasure of making much of God! Christian hedonism is the final solution. It is deeper than death to self. You have to go down deeper into the grave of flesh to find the truly freeing stream of miracle water that ravishes you with the taste of God's glory. Only in that speechless, all-satisfying admiration is the end of self.


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The typical condemnation of Jesus' claim to be the only way to heaven is that it is arrogant.


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Punishment should vary because of different degrees of evil, then so should the degrees of anger in response to evil. In other words, our anger should be governed not only by our love for the one who makes us angry, but also by the seriousness of his offense.


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The smallest details of life on earth are governed by God...therefore, don't fear. And, by implication, don't be angry in a way that contradicts your confidence in God's care over your life. God's providence will govern all the evil that comes against us so that His purposes are fulfilled. This will have an affect on the way we experience anger. Evil is being done, but it does not have the last say, and in the end even serves God's hidden designs. There may be anger but the hostility and stings of it will be removed by this confidence.


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Jesus transforms that ordinary, understandable emotional experience of anger. Instead of saying, "Be legitimately angry," or "Try to control your anger", he says the most incredible thing imaginable: "Rejoice and be glad." Anger at being persecuted unjustly cannot be unaffected by this command. Our rage at unjust treatment cannot remain untransformed if we rejoice over the same treatment.


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And we know from all that Jesus taught us about God, that God experiences anger and joy simultaneously because he sees and responds perfectly to all evil and all good at the same time.


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Our joy in the presence of persecution is possible because of God's providence.


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Christians are not sufficiently in touch with themselves. They do not know themselves well enough to realize that, because of the way in which their nature has been changed, their hearts are now set against all known sin. So they hang on to the unspiritual and morally murky behavior patterns and feel to give up those things would be impossibly painful and impoverishing, so though they know they should, they do not. Instead, they settle for being substandard Christians, imagining they will be happier that way. 
    The truth is that they are behaving in a radically unnatural way, one that offers deep-level violence to their changed nature...The regenerate heart cannot love what it knows God hates.
                (I love that last line!)



Quotes from God is the Gospel



If Christ is not preached and his glory is not exalted, the Holy Spirit does not open our eyes, for there is no glorious Christ displayed for us to see. The Holy Spirit does not do his work apart from the gospel because his work is to open our eyes to see Christ displayed in the gospel, and until the gospel is preached Christ is not there to see. The Holy Spirit, we might say, flies in perfect formation behind the jet of the Christ-exalting gospel.



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The work of the Holy Spirit in changing us is not to work directly on our bad habits but to make us admire Jesus Christ so much that sinful habits feel foreign and distasteful.

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The gospel awakens sorrow for sin by awakening a savor for God.
p. 108