Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
John Piper invites you to experience deeper intimacy with God through these thought-provoking and soul-enriching meditations. Whether you are just discovering the divine richness of Scripture or have long been a passionate student, you’ll find a deeper understanding of God and renewed insight for your journey.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780593192993 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The Crown Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 01/21/2014 |
| Pages: | 224 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 7.20(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
A Word to the Reader
One of the reasons I put together collections of short meditations is that my life has been changed as much by paragraphs as by books. Books on one topic are valuable. They let the author explore all the angles of an insight. But where do the insights themselves come from? Usually they come from paragraphs. Even sentences. For reasons not entirely explainable, God can make a single paragraph life changing.
Perhaps some evening your soul is hungry. Not for anything in particular, just a soul-hunger. A longing. Something is needed beyond what television is going to give. Something about God, or about the meaning of your life, or about eternity. You’re tired and you know you probably can’t stay awake to read twenty pages. So you pick up a book that you know focuses on eternal things, a Godward book. And three minutes later you have seen something, and you will never be the same again.
It may take a lifetime to sound the depths of what you just saw. But the seeing happens in an instant. It’s as if God takes the paragraph in his fingers and uses it to adjust the lens on the eye of your soul, and something wonderful comes into focus that you had never seen before.
Isn’t it amazing to think about the relationship between God’s focusing fingers and the human activity of writing and reading? You may have read that same paragraph before, perhaps just the other evening. But this time God put his fingers on it and turned the lens just one more focusing notch. What this means is that I should pray as a writer and you should pray as a reader. We should ask God to do this focusing.
I think of your reading and my writing as a kind of partnership in the pursuit of a Godward miracle. I write, you read, but God gives the sight. What we both want is this miracle of seeing—seeing lifechanging things about God and life and eternity.
In one of his letters the apostle Paul said, “By reading you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ” (Ephesians 3:4, author’s translation). But was reading enough? A few sentences later he prayed that they “may have strength to…know the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:18–19). Something more was needed than reading. Something from God—he called it “strength to know.” Earlier he had prayed that the eyes of his readers’ hearts would be “enlightened, that you may know” (Ephesians 1:18). Something from God is needed—in answer to prayer. This is what I meant when I said that God takes a human paragraph and puts his fingers on the lens of the eye of your soul. The slightest turn and we are made strong with sight. We are never the same again.
So I have written. And you are reading. And God is ready to act. My words are not Scripture. They are not infallible like God’s words. But my earnest aim in all I write is to be faithful to God’s written Word in the Bible. To point to God and his Son and his works and his ways. My aim is a Godward book in the hope that God will put his fingers on its paragraphs and turn the lens of the eye of your soul, ever so delicately, and bring glories into focus.
This is how God forms us into his image. “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). This is our aim: From a Godward paragraph, to a sight of glory, to a Godward heart.
A very special word of thanks is due to David Mathis, executive editor at Desiring God. David helped me assemble these meditations from all the different places and times where I had written them. After I reworked them for this book, he provided his sharp theological, stylistic, and formatting eye to help me refine them for final release. I admire David’s gifts and love his friendship. Thank you, David, for your partnership.
I have enjoyed a long and happy relationship with Multnomah Books, especially in bringing my shorter writings to publication. A Godward Heart is a continuation of what we began in A Godward Life, Book One (2001), continued in A Godward Life, Book Two (2003), Pierced by the Word (2003), Life as a Vapor (2004), and Taste and See (2005). I am thankful for this publishing partnership for the sake of spreading what I pray will prove to be life-changing, Christ-exalting paragraphs.
Table of Contents
A Word to the Reader xiii
1 The Morning I Heard the Voice of God: When God's Word Gets Personal 1
2 What Does It Mean to Seek the Lord?: A Meditation on Psalm 105:4 6
3 Glorifying the Grace of God: Why Everything Exists 10
4 How Is God's Passion for His Glory Not Selfishness?: God's Glory as the Source and Sum of Our Joy 13
5 Galatians 4:18 and "Being Made Much Of": Our Satisfaction in God's Supremacy 19
6 "I Love Jesus Christ": An Unforgettable Moment in Seminary 22
7 Every Step on the Calvary Road Was Love: The Intensity of Christ's Love and the Intentionality of His Death 25
8 Be Careful, Lest the Light in You Be Darkness: Pondering a Puzzling Text 29
9 Covering the Chasm: The Rebellion of Nudity and the Meaning of Clothing 32
10 Discerning Idolatry in Desire: Twelve Ways to Recognize the Rise of Covetousness 37
11 The Precious Gift of Baby Talk: Human Language as the Precious Path to Knowing God 41
12 Let Christians Vote as Though Not Voting: Political Engagement When the World Is Passing Away 45
13 Does God Lie?: Reflections on God's Truthfulness and Sovereignty over Falsehood 51
14 When Satan Hurts Christ's People: Reflections on Why Christians Suffer Losses 54
15 Apostle of Jesus and Abolitionist with the Gospel: How Paul Worked to Overcome Slavery 58
16 The Sorrows of Fathers and Sons: Thoughts from the Lives of C. S. Lewis and Robert Louis Stevenson 62
17 If You Can Be Godly and Wrong, Does Truth Matter?: Reflections on Right Doctrine and Right Doing 66
18 When Does God Become 100 Percent for Us?: Were the Elect Ever Children of Wrath? 70
19 Feeding My Soul in Four Parts of the Bible: A Glimpse of My Morning Strolls in God's Garden 74
20 Gleaning Truth from G. K. Chesterton: How a Roman Catholic Can Serve Today's Happy Calvinists 79
21 What's the Place of Confrontation in Marriage?: Guidance from Ephesians 5:25-27 83
22 Changed Lives in Jesus' New Life: Radical Effects of the Resurrection 87
23 How God Teaches the Deep Things of His Word: A Meditation on Psalm 119:65-72 91
24 How Shall We Love Our Muslim Neighbor?: Winning Them to Jesus by Echoing His Love 96
25 What Love Does and Does Not Do: An Anniversary Meditation on 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 102
26 Putting My Daughter to Bed After the Bridge Collapsed: What Do Tragedies Like This Mean for Us? 107
27 How the Cross Conquers Satan's Work: God's Deliverance from God as the Foundation of God's Deliverance from Satan 112
28 How Do You "Give" God Strength?: A Meditation on Psalm 96:7 117
29 "He Will Rejoice over You with Gladness": Why God Tells His Children That He Delights in Them 120
30 Caring Enough to Take the Risk: What to Say to the Depressed, Doubting, Skeptical, Confused, Angry 126
31 Hero Worship and Holy Emulation: Navigating the New World of Media-Driven Celebrity 130
32 Bless the Mother of Jesus-but Mainly Be the Mother of Jesus: Admiring the Imitable Mary 134
33 How the Lord of Life Gives Life: A Meditation on Acts 16:14 138
34 Awakened by Suffering and Pain: Abraham Lincoln's Path to Divine Providence 141
35 The Strange Task of Witnessing About Light: A Meditation on John 1:7 144
36 Submission and Headship in the Home Where I Grew Up: Female Competency and Biblical Complementarity 148
37 When Signs and Wonders Go Bad: Reflections on Heresy, Deception, and Love for God 152
38 Coed Combat and Cultural Cowardice: Why Women Suffer as Chivalry Collapses 156
39 Why Require Unregenerate Children to Act Like They're Good?: Three Reasons for Parenting by God's Revealed Will 159
40 "Do Good to Everyone": If God Wills Disease, Why Should We Try to Eradicate It? 164
41 Does Anyone Standing by the Lake of Fire Jump In?: Reflections on How Willingly Sinners Enter Hell 167
42 Stereotypes and Racism: Checking Ethnocentrism in Our Statistical Generalizations 172
43 The Unbelieving Poet Catches a Glimpse of Truth: When Beauty Becomes Irresistible 177
44 The Deceitful and Deadly Health-and-Wealth Teaching: Seven Pleas to Prosperity Preachers 180
45 Sheep, Wolves, Snakes, and Doves: Thoughts on Matthew 10:16 185
46 Abolition and the Roots of Public Justice: The Public Power of Protestant Justification 189
47 Topple Every Idol: Fighting Covetousness by Looking at Others 192
48 Creating Pointers to the Greatness of Christ: Why and How I Tweet 195
49 What Will the Final Judgment Mean for You?: Thoughts on the Book of Life and Union with Christ 198
50 Let's Make Some Resolutions: Endeavoring Fresh Good for the Glory of God 203
A Note on Resources: Desiring God 206