How to Fight for Joy During a Season of Spiritual Dryness
The answer to the question “What do you do when you’re not happy in God?” is to preach to yourself. Preach to yourself Psalm 42—and all the other glorious promises of the Bible.
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How to Fight for Joy During a Season of Spiritual Dryness
The answer to the question “What do you do when you’re not happy in God?” is to preach to yourself. Preach to yourself Psalm 42—and all the other glorious promises of the Bible.
Good Friday Is the Purpose of Christmas
Hebrews 2:14–15 is my favorite Advent text because it expresses so clearly the connection between the beginning and the ending of Jesus’s earthly life—between the incarnation and the crucifixion.
What Does It Mean to Let Our Light Shine?
The light that we let shine is the light that we are. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14). So what does it mean then that we are the light of the world?
What Keeps God from Being a Megalomaniac?
One of the values of Christian Hedonism is that it answers the objection of why or how God can be so God-centered—because he manifestly is.
The First Step Toward Finding Joy in God Is to Desire It
The desire to rejoice in God is a species of joy in God. It’s a seed. You think of a seed and a tree. A seed is a real thing. It’s life, but it’s different from a tree.
Christian Hedonism Is About Genuine Love and True Obedience
Loving acts are genuine to the degree that they are not done begrudgingly. And the good alternative to begrudgingly is not neutrally or dutifully but gladly.
If God Is Sovereign, Why Is There Evil in the World?
The clearest example that even moral evil fits into the designs of God is the crucifixion of Christ. Who would deny that the betrayal of Jesus by Judas was a morally evil act?
Are You Worshiping God in Vain?
Worship is bowing, lifting hands, praying, singing, reciting, preaching, performing rites of eating, cleansing, ordaining, and so on. But the startling fact is that all these things can be done in vain.
6 Things That Christian Hedonism Is and Is Not
Many objections rise in people’s minds when they hear me talk about Christian Hedonism. Perhaps I can defuse some of the resistance in advance by making a few brief, clarifying comments.
Jesus’s Final Command Revealed His Ultimate Goal
Teaching people to parrot all that Jesus commanded is easy. Teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded is impossible.
Saving faith goes beyond confidence in Christ’s reliability, and receives him—not just his word, but himself, that is, all that God is for us in him.
9 Powers of Satan That Are Not Ultimate
While God has his reasons for permitting Satan to exist and pursue evil, he has never given, nor will give to Satan any freedom that God himself doesn't restrain and decisively direct for his purposes.
How Do I Live Through a Season of Darkness?
It is utterly crucial that in our darkness we affirm the wise, strong hand of God to hold us, even when we have no strength to hold him.
John Piper’s Favorite Christmas Text
Jesus wasn’t humble for the same reasons we are (or should be). So how can looking at Jesus’s Christmas humility help us?
How Can We Worship in Spirit and in Truth?
Everyone in the world worships something. From the most religious to the most secular, all people value something high enough to build their lives around it.
Jesus Will Deliver Us from the Wrath of Jesus
Against the backdrop of coming judgment, the second coming of Christ is pictured as a rescue of his people. He is coming to save us from God’s wrath.
How Do I Follow Jesus When He Is Not Here?
Jesus knew that he would not always be on earth, so the command that we follow him was relevant not only for his physical days on earth but for all time.
Why Gifts of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh?
God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything. The gifts of the magi are not given by way of assistance or need meeting.
6 Habits of Heart and Mind for Lifelong Learners
Lifelong learning for the glory of Christ calls for continual growth in six habits of mind and heart. We seek to instill these habits in our students so that their education does not stop when their schooling stops.
Missionaries Come from People Like You
God is closing in on some of you. He is like the “Hound of Heaven” who means to make you far happier in some dangerous and dirty work. Missionaries and ministers of mercy don’t come from nowhere.
Jesus Said More about Hell Than Anyone in the Bible
The word wrath is important for understanding what Jesus meant by hell. Hell is not simply the natural consequence of rejecting God.
What Did Jesus Teach about Giving Generously?
The reason money is so crucial for Jesus is that across all cultures and all ages it represents the alternative to God as the treasure of our hearts, and therefore the object of our worship.
Practically, How Do We Abide in Jesus?
Jesus commands that we go on repenting, coming, believing, loving, and listening. The transformation of repentance continues. Coming to Jesus again and again continues.
Jesus is not commending hypocritical prayer. He is not calling for show-prayer. He is calling for real prayer, that is, real Godward desire for the good of our enemy.
Why Jesus Warns Us to Be Alert for His Second Coming
The appearing of Christ becomes a sudden trap not because it could happen any moment, but because the spiritually unseeing will be blind to Christ’s coming.
Reading the Bible Gathers a Family from Every Tribe and Tongue
Without the Bible, there would be no ingathering of God’s people, and without the Bible, there would be no beautification of the bride. So everyone who enters the people of God by faith comes by the word.
Where Christ Isn’t Being Treasured, He’s Being Used
Christ as a treasure is not a slice of Christ. It is every dimension of Christ—all of Christ—making up the totality of his infinite value.
How to Pray with the End Times in Mind
Closely connected to end-time gatherings for the sake of encouraging each other not to grow cold in love, but to persevere in faith, is the summons to end-time praying.
What Must Happen before Jesus Returns?
We do not know how much time must elapse before Jesus comes. We err to say otherwise. But we may err in the other direction as well—presuming to think that he must not be near.
What Does the New Testament Mean That Jesus Will Come Soon?
What would it mean for an infallible spokesman (an apostle!) of the Lord Jesus, who cannot predict the time, to say that Jesus is coming soon?