Quotes from Paul David Tripp

Worshiping the creation is never a pathway to life; it leads you in the opposite direction.

You are most loving, patient, kind, and gracious when you are aware that there is no truth that you could give to another that you don't desperately need yourself.

God's purpose in controlling the details of your life (the exact length of it and the locations where you live) is so that at any moment in the middle of your unfolding story, you can reach out and touch him, because his rule makes him very near to every one of us. What each of us really needs in our finite and faltering humanness is not so much the success of our plans, but God himself.

Everything that was created was made by God and for God. All the glories of the created world were designed to point to his glory. The universe is his, designed to function according to his purpose and plan. That includes you and me. We were not made to live independent, self-directed lives. We were not meant to exist according to our own little self-oriented plans, living for our own moments of glory. No, we were created to live for him.

the Bible is not a collection of stories, but one big story with lots of chapters. It is the story of how God meets weak and failing people with his powerful grace.

Here is what life is all about. At its center is a God of awesome glory—glorious in power, wisdom, faithfulness, love, and grace. Here is what everyone needs—rescue by this glory. Here is what everyone was created for—to live for this glory. Here is grace—that God would choose to splash his eternal glory down on inglorious, unthankful, rebellious, and self-oriented people such as us.

The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. (James 5:15–16)

your body hungers to be filled, but your soul hungers even more.

The question is not whether you will worship, but rather what you will worship—your glorious Creator or something he created.

What is God doing? First, he's reigning! No, your world is not out of control. No, the bad guys are not going to win. No, sin will not have the final victory. Because your world is not out of control but under God's careful redemptive control, you can have hope even when it looks to you as if darkness is winning the day.

Because I had been given another gift: the knowledge of a ready, willing, and capable Savior. I had been blessed with the awareness of his offer of forgiveness to all who confess their sin and by faith seek his forgiveness.

The answer to the big question we have proposed is really quite easy and straightforward. What is God up to right here, right now? Redemption! He is actively working on sin's final defeat and our complete deliverance. He is working out the spoils of the victory that Christ accomplished on the cross of Calvary.

Your life is not good because it is easy or predictable, but because the I Am has invaded your existence by his grace.

Just like Adam, when we blame people and situations for our problems, below the surface we are also making accusations against God.

No need to deny, rationalize, or otherwise excuse away evidence of your sin. God wouldn't have sent his Son if your sin were not real.

It's so easy to have divine wisdom corrupted by human wisdom. It's so easy to breathe in the polluted air of a culture that no longer actually thinks that God is, let alone that he is wise.

A good relationship is a good relationship because the people in the relationship never quit working on the relationship.

Suffering, sadness, and death are not yet no more. It is hard to live in the middle, but that is exactly where we live. We live in a world that is still sadly and terribly broken.

The physical world is full of many glories, but the pursuit of these glories must not rule my heart because they have no ability whatsoever to offer me the life that I so desperately need.

Biblical literacy and theological expertise are not, therefore, the end of the Word but a God-ordained means to an end, and the end is a radically transformed life because the worship at the center of that life has been reclaimed.

But when you begin to celebrate the sovereignty of God and how he formed you and brought you and your spouse together for his glory and your good, you quit being irritated by your differences and start celebrating how your life has been enhanced by them. As a result, you will not only give room to your spouse's sensibilities, but you will honor him or her in what you do and say in the moments when you are confronted with the differences in your approach to the very same things.