Quotes from John Piper

The universe exists primarily to display the wealth of the glory of the mercy of God for the enjoyment of his redeemed people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

The first thing we learn is that worship has to do with real life. It is not a mythical interlude in a week of reality. Worship has to do with adultery and hunger and racial conflict.

Where in the context might we look for the reward that the Father encourages us to seek? I think a reliable guide would be the prayer that Jesus just taught us to pray in Matthew 6:9–13. It begins with three main longings that we are to hope for from God. First, that God's name be hallowed or revered; second, that God's kingdom come; and third, that his will be done on earth the way it's done in heaven.

What you and I need is usually not a brand-new teaching. Brand-new truths are probably not truths. What we need are reminders about the greatness of the old truths. We need someone to say an old truth in a fresh way. Or sometimes, just to say it.

If you are sufficient for your task it's too small.

Christ is to be cherished, not just chosen.

If we live twenty-nine years or if we live ninety-nine years, would not any hardships be worth the saving of one person from the eternal torments of hell for the everlasting enjoyment of the glory of God?

In other words, physical evil is a parable, a drama, a signpost pointing to the moral outrage of rebellion against God.

If God alone is enough to support joy when all else is lost, it is a miracle of grace.

Most of our life is a gorging of one artificially inflamed appetite after another.

If the beams are beautiful, the sun is even more beautiful. God's aim is not that we merely admire His gifts, but even more, His glory.

That's the kind of love the Father has. It is a giving love. It gives his most precious treasure—his Son. Meditate on that this Advent. It was a very costly love. A very powerful love. A very rugged, painful love. The meaning of Christmas is the celebration of this love. "God so loved . . ." And wonder of wonders, God gives this costly love to an undeserving world of sinners, like us.

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. That is what the next chapter is about.

Therefore, the reason God seeks our praise is not because He won't be complete until He gets it. He is seeking our praise because we won't be complete until we give it. This is not arrogance. It is love.

People lift their hand to rebel against the Most High only to find that their rebellion is unwitting service in the wonderful designs of God.

Physical pain is God's trumpet blast to tell us that something is dreadfully wrong in the world.

Irony and disproportion are all God's way. He keeps us off balance with his unpredictable connections. We think we know how to do something big, and God makes it small. We think that all we have is weak and small, and God makes it big.

Paul worked hard. He did not say that God's grace made his work unnecessary. He said God's grace made his work possible.

The same sovereignty that could stop the coronavirus, yet doesn't, is the very sovereignty that sustains the soul in it.

And Christ "will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him." (Heb 9:28). And "on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written"---not king of the Jews, but "King of all kings and Lord of lords." (Rev. 19:16). Amen. Come, King Jesus.

It shows how Christ-exalting the Holy Spirit is. He will not do his sanctifying work by the use of his direct divine power. He will only do it by making the glory of Christ the immediate cause of it. This is the way he works in evangelism, and this is the way he works in sanctification

The most foundational thing to see from the Bible about marriage is that it is God's doing. And the ultimate thing to see from the Bible about marriage is that it is for God's glory. Those are the two points I have to make. Most foundationally, marriage is the doing of God. And ultimately, marriage is the display of God.

God is our supreme pleasure. We prefer above all else to know him and see him and be with him and be like him.