Category: Quote of the Day

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10 Reasons Why I Am Thankful for the God-Breathed Bible

CB064047I love this Top Ten List of Piper’s–they are great reasons to be thankful!

By John Piper November 20, 2006

1. The Bible awakens faith, the source of all obedience.

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17)

2. The Bible frees from sin.

You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. (John 8:32)

3. The Bible frees from Satan.

The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:24-26)

4. The Bible sanctifies.

Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. (John 17:17)

5. The Bible frees from corruption and empowers godliness.

His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. (2 Peter 1:3-4)

6. The Bible serves love.

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment. (Philippians 1:9)

But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (1 Timothy 1:5)

7. The Bible saves.

Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. (1 Timothy 4:16)

Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. (Acts 20:26)

[They will] perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. (2 Thessalonians 2:10)

8. The Bible gives joy.

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. (John 15:11)

9. The Bible reveals the Lord.

And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord. (1 Samuel 3:21)

10. Therefore, the Bible is the foundation of my happy home and life and ministry and hope of eternity with God.

Desiring GodPermissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Desiring God.Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: By John Piper.  Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

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Bark on the Tree

 Q:  Many Christians look at the state of the church and say it’s dead, merely an institutional expression of the faith.

“What other church is there besides institutional? There’s nobody who doesn’t have problems with the church, because there’s sin in the church. But there’s no other place to be a Christian except the church. There’s sin in the local bank. There’s sin in the grocery stores. I really don’t understand this naiive criticism of the institution. I really don’t get it. bark (Small)

Frederick von Hugel said the institution of the church is like the bark on the tree. There’s no life in the bark. It’s dead wood. But it protects the life of the tree within. And the tree grows and grows and grows and grows. If you take the bark off, it’s prone to disease, dehydration, death.

So, yes, the church is dead but it protects something alive. And when you try to have a church without bark, it doesn’t last long. It disappears, gets sick, and it’s prone to all kinds of disease, heresy, and narcissism.

In my writing, I hope to recover a sense of the reality of congregation–what it is. It’s a gift of the Holy Spirit. Why are we always idealizing what the Holy Spirit doesn’t idealize? There’s no idealization of the church in the Bible–none. We’ve got two thousand years of history now. Why are we so dumb?”  ((Eugene Peterson, “Spirituality for All the Wrong Reasons” Christianity Today, March 2005))

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Desires of the Heart

“Pop theologies baptize the longing of sinful hearts:health and wealth, significance and security, self-esteem, power to get what you want. But the heart Holy Spirit is in the business of changing what you want. Should you want what you ask for in the Lord’s Prayer? Yes and Amen!There are riches to be mined from the ground now trampled and mired by the modern jargon of “feelings.” Enter and dig! The Bible teaches that as you learn a simple and pure devotion to Christ, you will find your experience, emotions, beliefs and desires braided into a single unified strand. You will bear fruit in good works prepared beforehand by the One who is recreating you in his image.” ((David Powlison, Seeing With New Eyes, P & R Publishing 2003, 219.))

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Say What?

cross“Self-exalters have to avoid the cross because the splinters of the old rugged cross always pop the balloon of self exaltation.”  (John Piper)

“Prayer is not conquering God’s reluctance but taking hold of God’s willingness.”  (Phillip Brooks)

“In all Christ’s people He is present–in some He is prominent–in a few He is pre-eminent.”  (F. B. Meyer)

“The Cross is the beginning of the Gospel.  What we sinners need is not merely a pattern, but a pardon, not merely a Pathfinder, but a Sin Bearer; not merely instruction, but salvation.”  (Sidlow Baxter)

“To speak of the deeper life is not to speak of anything deeper than simple New Testament religion.  The “deeper life” is deeper only because the average Christian life is tragically shallow.”  (A. W. Tozer)

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He’s full of it!

 

dance1 “Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.”      Acts 6:8

“One of the advantages of the grace of God is that it makes a man a gentleman without the aid of a dancing master.”     (John Wesley) 

Paul S. Rees, Man of Action in the Book of Acts (Westwood, NJ: Revell, 1966), 32

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How Firm a Foundation?

 Larry Crabb continues to be an author that helps me see underneath and behind some of my doubting thoughts.  In his book Finding God he asked his readers:

“Imagine what it would be like to say the following words from Habakkuk and mean them! (I’ve added a few phrases in italic to bring the passage home.)

Though the fig tree does not bud

and I am alone;

and there are no grapes on the vines,

and I can find no joy in my world right now;

though the olive crop fails

and I have nothing to soothe my open wounds;

and the fields produce no food,

and I am out of a job or hate the one I have;

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no one warms me on cold nights

and no cattle in the stalls

and I have no tangible basis for feeling secure,

yet will I rejoice in the LORD,

I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign LORD is my strength;

he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

he enables me to go on the heights.

(Hab. 3:17-19)

S705252-Can_you_see_the_jaguar_in_the_picture-Cuscohifting our foundation from doubt to confidence, from terror to enjoyment, from rage to worship will occur only when something stirs within us that makes us long, more than anything else, to build our lives on the reality of God.  But we’re not there yet.  No one is, not fully.  With doubt, terror, and rage filling our hearts, we turn to others, not to love them, but to get from them at least a little of what we need.  Bent on relief from our pain and revenge against God, we enter into relationships with the desperate cry that seems so reasonable: “I need you!”  And that cry moves us into the first floor of the fallen structure…When we live to get from others (and everyone does who suspects that God isn’t good), the results are always the same: inevitable disappointment, temporary fulfillment, and bitter loneliness.  When we doubt God and turn away from him to cry to others, “I need you,” we never stop crying.” ((Larry Crabb, Finding God, Zondervan 1993, 108-109.))

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The Way, the Truth and the Life

329The-Way-The-Truth-The-Life“As he neared the end, our Lord could speak of little else than the Father. (John 14:1-11)  Heaven was his Father’s house, where a prepared mansion awaits each of us, perfectly adapted to the peculiarities of our temperament.  God prepares a mansion for those  who believe in Christ, and he asks in return that we shall prepare our hearts as guest chambers for him to dwell in.  The yearning of the heart of man was truly set forth by Philip in his request to see the Father; but never before had it dawned upon human intelligence that the divine can find its supreme revelation in the simplicities and commonplaces of human existence.  While Philip was waiting for the Father to be shown in lightning and thunder and the splendor of Sinai, he missed the daily unfolding of the life with which he dwelt in daily contact.  To see Jesus was to see the Father.  Nothing could more certainly prove the need of the Holy Spirit, by whom alone we can know the Lord.”  ((F.B. Meyer, Devotional Commentary, p. 472))