Quotes from John Piper

The best thing in the universe is to be united to Christ. To be in Christ. To enjoy union with Christ.

We Boast Best in the Cross When We Bear It

Jesus came into the world with good news, not bad news. He does not call us to a willpower religion that feels only duty and no delight. He calls us to himself and to his Father. Therefore, he calls us to joy. Of course, it is not joy in things. Jesus is not preaching a health, wealth, and prosperity gospel—one of America's most lamentable exports to the world. It is joy in God and in his Son.

Belief in Jesus does not come by the waving of a magic wand. It comes by hearing the word of God through Jesus.

If you have pity for perishing people and a passion for the reputation of Christ, you must care about world missions.

When something drops into your life that seems to threaten your future, remember this: the first shockwaves of the bomb are not sin. The real danger is yielding to them. Giving in. Putting up no spiritual fight. And the root of that surrender is unbelief - a failure to fight for faith in future grace. A failure to cherish all that God promises to be for us in Jesus.

There is no point in romanticizing other religions that reject the deity and saving work of Christ. They do not know God. And those who follow them tragically waste their lives.

The pathway to maturity and to solid biblical food is not first becoming an intelligent person, but becoming an obedient person.

Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain.

No man can comfort our souls in this pandemic the way God can. His comfort is unshakable. It is the comfort of a great, high Rock in the stormy sea. It comes from his word, the Bible.

2) Singing can help us engage emotionally with words, which means that we need a broader emotional range in the songs we sing, and that singing them should be an emotional event.

And because his love for you never had a beginning, it can have no end.

Enjoyment of Jesus is not like icing on the cake; it's like powder in the shell.

A godly life is lived out of an astonished heart—a heart that is astonished at grace.

The key to endurance in the cause of self-sacrificing love is not heroic willpower, but deep, unshakable confidence that the joy we have tasted in fellowship with Christ will not disappoint us in death.

God is committed to rewarding those acts of the human heart that signify human helplessness and hope in God.

O Father, touch us with fresh faith that we might believe the incredible. The very pain of Christ that makes us despair is our salvation. Open our fearful hearts to receive the gospel. Waken the dead parts of our hearts that cannot feel what must be felt-that we are loved with the deepest, strongest, purest love in the universe.

So waiting is a holy work Of faith in God. Nor does there lurk Beneath the timing of his ways Some secret malice that displays Itself in holding back the flow Of future grace. God does not go From here to there by shortest routes; He makes a place for faith and doubts. Nor does he hasten on his way, But comes when it is best, today, Or maybe twenty years from now, Or more.

One great function of Bible verses: To keep us from drawing false inferences from other Bible verses.

The reason God knows the future is because he plans the future and accomplishes it.

Genuine love is the glad effort to make others glad in God forever. Genuine love is being willing to suffer and die to draw as many people as we can into the pursuit and enjoyment of God.

The discipline to rise early is not as difficult as the discipline of going to bed. This did not used to be so. Before electricity and radio and television and the Internet, going to bed soon after dark was not so difficult. There was not much to do. Today the strongest allurements to stay up and be entertained are against us. Therefore, the battle against weariness, which makes us drowsy as soon as we open our Bible in the morning, has to be fought in the evening, not just in the morning.

Some of us are afraid of getting too emotional when we sing. But the problem isn't emotions. It's emotionalism. Emotionalism pursues feelings as ends in themselves. It's wanting to feel something with no regard for how that feeling is produced or its ultimate purpose.

the story of Ruth . . .was written to give us encouragement and hope that all the perplexing turns in our lives are going somewhere good. They do not lead off a cliff. In all the setbacks of our lives as believers, God is plotting for our joy.