From God's Passion for His Glory by John Piper (John, Piper,. God's passion for His glory living the vision of Jonathan Edwards, with the complete text of The end for which God created the world. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway, 1998. Print.)
"Thus the exhibition of God’s glory and the deepest joy of human souls are one thing. The implications of this are breathtaking. I mention fifteen in acorn-form. Any one of them could become a great oak tree with book-length branches." (33)
Two Great Passions Not at Odds
Implication #1. God’s passion for his own glory and his passion for my joy in him are not at odds.
God Is Committed to the Joy of the Saints
Implication #2. Therefore, God is as committed to my eternal and ever-increasing joy in him as he is to his own glory.
The Essence of God’s Love for You
Implication #3. The love of God for sinners is not his making much of them, but his graciously freeing and empowering them to enjoy making much of him.
What Is the Essence of True Virtue?
Implication #4. If the exhibition of God’s glory and the deepest joy of human souls are one thing, then all true virtue among human beings must aim at bringing people to rejoice in the glory of God.
Sin Is Sacrilege and Suicide
Implication #5. It also follows that sin is the suicidal exchange of the glory of God for the broken cisterns of created things.
Ever-increasing Joy in an Inexhaustible God
Implication #6. Heaven will be a never-ending, ever-increasing discovery of more and more of God’s glory with greater and ever greater joy in him.
When Creatures Refuse to Be Happy in God
Implication #7. Hell is unspeakably real, conscious, horrible and eternal—the experience in which God vindicates the worth of his glory in holy wrath on those who would not delight in what is infinitely glorious.
Evangelism: Laboring to Waken a Taste for God
Implication #8. If the exhibition of God’s glory and the deepest joy of human souls are one thing, then evangelism means depicting the beauty of Christ and his saving work with a heartfelt urgency of love that labors to help people find their satisfaction in him.
Preaching: Luring out People to God
Implication #9. Similarly, Christian preaching, as part of the corporate worship of Christ’s church, is an expository exultation over the glories of God in his word, designed to lure God’s people from the fleeting pleasures of sin into the sacrificial path of obedient satisfaction in him.
Corporate Worship: The Heart Hunger That Honors God
Implication #10. The essence of authentic, corporate worship is the collective experience of heartfelt satisfaction in the glory of God, or a trembling that we do not have it and a great longing for it.
World Missions: A Passion for God’s Glory in the Joy of All Peoples
Implication #11. If the exhibition of God’s glory and the deepest joy of human souls are one thing, then world missions is a declaration of the glories of God among all the unreached peoples, with a view to gathering worshippers who magnify God through the gladness of radically obedient lives.
We Get the Help, He Gets the Glory
Implication #12. Prayer is calling on God for help; so it is plain that he is gloriously resourceful and we are humbly and happily in need of grace.
Scholarship: Seeing and Savoring God in Every Branch of Learning
Implication #13. The task of Christian scholarship is to study reality as a manifestation of God’s glory, to speak about it with accuracy, and to savor the beauty of God in it.
God Is Glorified When Death Is Gain
Implication #14. The way to magnify God in death is by meeting death as gain.
The Great Duty: Be as Happy as You Can—in God Forever
Implication #15. Finally, if the exhibition of God’s glory and the deepest joy of human souls are one thing, then, as C. S. Lewis said, “It is a Christian duty, as you know, for everyone to be as happy as he can.”
No comments:
Post a Comment