The Point of Creation

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

God made humans in his image so that the world would be filled with reflectors of God. Images of God. Seven billion statues of God. So that nobody would miss the point of creation.

Nobody (unless they are stone blind) could miss the point of humanity, namely, God — knowing, loving, showing God. The angels cry in Isaiah 6:3, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” It is full of billions of human image-bearers. Glorious ruins.

But not only humans. Also nature! Why such a breathtaking world for us to live in? Why such a vast universe?

I once read that there are more stars in the universe than there are words and sounds that all humans of all time have ever spoken. Why are there so many? So large? So bright? At such unimaginable distances? The Bible is crystal clear about this: “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1).

If someone asks, “If earth is the only inhabited planet and man the only rational inhabitant among the stars, why such a large and empty universe?” The answer is: It’s not about us. It’s about God. And it’s an understatement. He is more glorious. Greater in power. Greater in scope. Greater brightness. Than all the galaxies combined. One wise man said, the universe is like a peanut that God carries around in his pocket.

God created us to know him and love him and show him. And then he gave us a hint of what he is like: the universe.

John Piper 

Help My Unbelief

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. (Romans 12:3)

In the context of this verse, Paul is concerned that people were thinking of themselves “more highly than [they] ought to think.” His final remedy for this pride is to say that not only are spiritual gifts a work of God’s free grace in our lives, but so also is the very faith with which we use those gifts. “. . . each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”

This means that every possible ground of boasting is taken away from us. How can we boast if even the qualification for receiving gifts is also a gift?

This truth has a profound impact on how we pray. Jesus gives us the example in Luke 22:31–32. Before Peter denies him three times Jesus says to him, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

Jesus prays for Peter’s faith to be sustained even through the sin of denial, because he knows that God is the one who gives faith. So we should pray the way Jesus did — for ourselves and for others that God would sustain our faith.

Thus, the man with the epileptic son cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). This is a good prayer. It acknowledges that without God we cannot believe as we ought to believe.

Let us pray daily, “O Lord, thank you for my faith. Sustain it. Strengthen it. Deepen it. Don’t let it fail. Make it the power of my life, so that in everything I do, you get the glory as the great Giver. Amen.”

John Piper 

Go on to the Meal

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! (Psalm 34:8)

To you who say you have never tasted the glory of God, I say, you have tasted many of its appetizers.

Have you ever looked up at the sky? Have you ever been hugged? Have you ever sat in front of a warm fire? Have you ever walked in the woods, sat by a lake, lain in a summer hammock? Have you ever drunk your favorite drink on a hot day or eaten anything good?

Every desire is either a devout or a distorted enticement to the glory of heaven.

You say you haven’t tasted God’s glory. I say, you have tasted the appetizers. Go on to the meal. Go on to God himself.

You have seen the shadows; look at the substance. You have walked in the warm rays of the day; turn and look at the sun itself — yes, through the protective and sharpening lens of the gospel. You have heard echoes of God’s glory everywhere; tune your heart to the original music.

The best place to get your heart tuned is at the cross of Jesus Christ. “We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

If you want the most concentrated display of the glory of God, look at Jesus in the Gospels, and look especially at the cross. This will focus your eyes and tune your heart and waken your taste buds so that you will see and hear and taste the glory of the true God everywhere.

That is what you were made for. I plead with you: don’t throw your life away on shadows. God made you to see and savor his glory. Pursue that with all your heart and above all else. You have tasted the appetizers. Now go on to the full banquet.

John Piper 

Seek Your City’s Good

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. . . . But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:4–5, 7)

If that was true for God’s exiles in Babylon, it would seem to be even more true for Christian exiles in this very “Babylon-like” world. What, then, shall we do?

We should do the ordinary things that need to be done: build houses; live in them; plant gardens. This does not contaminate you if you do it all for the real King and not just for eye service as men-pleasers.

Seek the welfare of the place where God has sent you. Think of yourself as sent there by God for his glory. Because you are.

Pray to the Lord on behalf of your city. Ask for great and good things to happen for the city. Ask that they happen by God’s power and for his glory. Never lose sight of the ultimate good that the city needs a thousand times more than it needs material prosperity. Christians care about all suffering — especially eternal suffering. That’s the greatest danger every city faces.

But neither God nor his people are indifferent to the health and safety and prosperity and freedom of the city. We all want these things, and Jesus said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). In fact, the Lord says in Jeremiah that loving your city is a way of loving yourself: “In its welfare you will find your welfare.”

This does not mean we give up our exile orientation. Peter says that Christians are “sojourners and exiles” (1 Peter 2:11) and Paul says “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). In fact, we will do most good for this world by keeping a steadfast freedom from its beguiling attractions. We will serve our city best by getting our values from “the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). We will do our city most good by calling as many of its citizens as we can to be citizens of “the Jerusalem above” (Galatians 4:26).

So, let’s live — let’s do so much good (1 Peter 2:12) — that the natives will want to meet our King.

John Piper 

 

What Would You Change If You Could?

“Blessed is every one who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways.” PSALM 128:1

 

PONDER THIS

A wise man looked back on his life and asked himself, “If I could do it all over again, what would I do differently with my family?” He said, “I would love my wife more in front of my children. I would laugh with my children more at our mistakes and our joys. I would listen more, even to the youngest child. I would be more honest about my own weaknesses and stop pretending perfection. I would pray differently for my family. Instead of focusing on their faults, I would focus more on what I need to change. I would do more things with my children. I would be encouraging and bestow more praise. I would pay more attention to little deeds and words of loving-kindness. And finally, if I could do it all over again, I would share God more intimately with my family, using every ordinary thing that happened to point them to God.” For many of us, at the end of our lives, we will recognize that the things that matter now may not be as important as they seem in the moment. We should ask God to help us re prioritize our lives for His glory.

If today were the last day of your life, how would you spend it?

How does the way we spend our lives show what is important to us, no matter what we say?

PRACTICE THIS

Take time today to think about what needs to change in the way you spend your life. Seek to implement that change moving forward.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Giver Gets the Glory

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 1:11–12)

It is very good news that God designs his glory to be magnified through the exercise of his grace.

To be sure, God is glorified through the power of his wrath (Romans 9:22), but repeatedly the New Testament (and the Old Testament, for example, Isaiah 30:18) says that we should experience God’s grace so that God gets glory.

Ponder how this works in the prayer of 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12.

Paul prays that God would fulfill our good resolves.

How? He prays that they would be done “by [God’s] power.” That is, that they would be “[works] of faith.”

Why? So that Jesus would be glorified in us.

That means the giver gets the glory. God gave the power. God gets the glory. We have faith; he gives power. We get the help; he gets the glory. That’s the deal that keeps us humble and happy, and keeps him supreme and glorious.

Then Paul says that this glorification of Christ is “according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus.”

God’s answer to Paul’s prayer that we rely on God’s power to do good works is grace. God’s power to enable you to do what you resolve to do is grace.

That’s the way it works in the New Testament over and over. Trust God for gracious enabling, and he gets the glory when the help comes.

We get the help. He gets the glory.

That’s why Christian living, not just Christian conversion, is good news.

John Piper 

What Is Your Aim?

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. . . . And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (1 Corinthians 10:31; Colossians 3:17)

When you get up in the morning and you face the day, what do you say to yourself about your hopes for the day? When you look from the beginning of the day to the end of the day, what do you want to happen because you have lived?

If you say, “I don’t even think like that. I just get up and do what I’ve got to do,” then you are cutting yourself off from a basic means of grace and a source of guidance and strength and fruitfulness and joy. It is crystal clear in the Bible, including these texts, that God means for us to aim consciously at something significant in our days.

God’s revealed will for you is that when you get up in the morning, you don’t drift aimlessly through the day letting mere circumstances alone dictate what you do, but that you aim at something — that you focus on a certain kind of purpose. I’m talking about children here, and teenagers, and adults — single, married, widowed, moms, and every trade and every profession.

Aimlessness is akin to lifelessness. Dead leaves in the back yard may move around more than anything else — more than the dog, more than the children. The wind blows this way, they go this way. The wind blows that way, they go that way. They tumble, they bounce, they skip, they press against a fence, but they have no aim whatsoever. They are full of motion and empty of life.

God did not create humans in his image to be aimless, like lifeless leaves blown around in the backyard of life. He created us to be purposeful — to have a focus and an aim for all our days. What is yours today? What is yours for the new year? A good place to start is 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

John Piper 

Plan for Prayer

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. . . . These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:7–8, 11)

Prayer pursues joy in fruitful fellowship with Jesus, knowing that God is glorified when we bear fruit in answer to prayer. Why do God’s children so often fail to have consistent habits of happy, fruitful prayer?

Unless I’m badly mistaken, one of the reasons is not so much that we don’t want to, but that we don’t plan to.

If you want to take a four-week vacation, you don’t just get up one summer morning and say, “Hey, let’s go today!” You won’t have anything ready. You won’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned.

But that is how many of us treat prayer. We get up day after day and realize that significant times of prayer should be a part of our life, but nothing is ready.

We don’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned. No time. No place. No procedure. And we all know that the opposite of planning is not a wonderful flow of deep, spontaneous experiences in prayer. The opposite of planning is the same old rut.

If you don’t plan a vacation, you will probably stay home and watch TV. The natural, unplanned flow of spiritual life sinks to the lowest ebb of vitality. There is a race to be run and a fight to be fought. If you want renewal in your life of prayer, you must plan to see it.

Therefore, my simple exhortation is this: Let us take time this very day to rethink our priorities and how prayer fits in. Make some new resolve. Try some new venture with God. Set a time. Set a place. Choose a portion of Scripture to guide you.

Don’t be tyrannized by the press of busy days. We all need mid course corrections. Make this a day of turning to prayer — for the glory of God and for the fullness of your joy.

John Piper 

The Most Liberating Discovery

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. (Philippians 3:1)

No one had ever taught me that God is glorified by our joy in him — that joy in God is the very thing that makes our praise an honor to God, and not hypocrisy.

But Jonathan Edwards said it so clearly and powerfully:

God glorifies himself towards the creatures also [in] two ways: (1) by appearing to . . . their understanding; (2) in communicating himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying the manifestations which he makes of himself. . . . God is glorified not only by his glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. . . .

[W]hen those that see it delight in it: God is more glorified than if they only see it. . . . He that testifies his idea of God’s glory [doesn’t] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it.

This was a stunning discovery for me. I must pursue joy in God if I am to glorify him as the surpassingly valuable Reality in the universe. Joy is not a mere option alongside worship. It is an essential component of worship. Indeed the very essence of worship — being glad in the glories of God.

We have a name for those who speak their praises of God when they have no pleasure in what they praise. We call them hypocrites. Jesus said, “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me’” (Matthew 15:7–8). This fact — that authentic praise means consummate pleasure and that the highest end of man is to drink deeply of this pleasure for God’s glory — was perhaps the most liberating discovery I have ever made.

John Piper 

Our Good Is His Glory

“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6)

One common objection to Christian Hedonism is that it puts the interests of man above the glory of God — that it puts my happiness above God’s honor. But Christian Hedonism most emphatically does not do this.

To be sure, we Christian Hedonists endeavor to pursue our interest and our happiness with all our might. We endorse the resolution of the young Jonathan Edwards: “Resolved: To endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.”

But we have learned from the Bible (and from Edwards!) that God’s interest is to magnify the fullness of his glory by spilling over in mercy to us — to us sinners, who desperately need him.

Therefore, the pursuit of our interest and our happiness, even if it costs us our lives, is never above God’s interest and God’s happiness and God’s glory, but always in God’s. One of the most precious truths in the Bible is that God’s greatest interest is to glorify the wealth of his grace by making sinners happy in him — in him!

When we humble ourselves like little children and put on no airs of self-sufficiency, but run happily into the joy of our Father’s embrace, the glory of his grace is magnified and the longing of our soul is satisfied. Our interest and his glory become one.

When Jesus promises in Matthew 6:6, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you,” this is a reward he wants us to seek. He does not lure us with joy we shouldn’t have! But this reward — this joy — is the overflow of turning away from human praise, and going into our closet to seek God.

Therefore, Christian Hedonists do not put their happiness above God’s glory. They put their happiness in God himself and discover the glorious truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

John Piper 

When the Fire Gets in You

“But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?”  2 CORINTHIANS 3:7-8

 

PONDER THIS

When Moses spent much time with the Lord face to face, his face began to shine as a reflection of the Shekinah glory of God. In my fireplace, I have a poker. I can take that poker and poke around in the fire, then put it back, and it’ll hardly be hot. But if I take that poker when there’s a roaring fire, and I leave it in there long enough, do you know what’ll happen? It’ll begin to glow. Because not only will the poker be in the fire, the fire will be in the poker. When you spend enough time in the presence of God, the presence of God gets into you. Not only are you there in the presence of God, but the presence of God gets into you.

This is not just true in the Old Testament. Paul said if it was glorious when God gave Moses the Old Testament Ten Commandments, then how is the Spirit not even more glorious? When you spend time with God, it will not fall void, but you will start to look like Him! You will start to reflect Him more in your daily life.

Who is someone you know who spends a lot of time alone with God? How does that make a difference in that person?

What makes it hard to spend time alone with God? How can you talk to God about those challenges and ask Him to help you with them?

PRACTICE THIS

Talk to someone who spends a lot of time alone with God, asking for practical insight and advice on how to pursue God in that way.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Giver Gets the Glory

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 1:11–12)

It is very good news that God designs his glory to be magnified through the exercise of his grace.

To be sure, God is glorified through the power of his wrath (Romans 9:22), but repeatedly the New Testament (and the Old Testament, for example, Isaiah 30:18) says that we should experience God’s grace so that God gets glory.

Ponder how this works in the prayer of 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12.

Paul prays that God would fulfill our good resolves.

How? He prays that they would be done “by [God’s] power.” That is, that they would be “[works] of faith.”

Why? So that Jesus would be glorified in us.

That means the giver gets the glory. God gave the power. God gets the glory. We have faith; he gives power. We get the help; he gets the glory. That’s the deal that keeps us humble and happy, and keeps him supreme and glorious.

Then Paul says that this glorification of Christ is “according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus.”

God’s answer to Paul’s prayer that we rely on God’s power to do good works is grace. God’s power to enable you to do what you resolve to do is grace.

That’s the way it works in the New Testament over and over. Trust God for gracious enabling, and he gets the glory when the help comes.

We get the help. He gets the glory.

That’s why Christian living, not just Christian conversion, is good news.

John Piper 

The Most Liberating Discovery

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. (Philippians 3:1)

No one had ever taught me that God is glorified by our joy in him — that joy in God is the very thing that makes our praise an honor to God, and not hypocrisy.

But Jonathan Edwards said it so clearly and powerfully:

God glorifies himself towards the creatures also [in] two ways: (1) by appearing to . . . their understanding; (2) in communicating himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying the manifestations which he makes of himself. . . . God is glorified not only by his glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. . . .

[W]hen those that see it delight in it: God is more glorified than if they only see it. . . . He that testifies his idea of God’s glory [doesn’t] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it.

This was a stunning discovery for me. I must pursue joy in God if I am to glorify him as the surpassingly valuable Reality in the universe. Joy is not a mere option alongside worship. It is an essential component of worship. Indeed the very essence of worship — being glad in the glories of God.

We have a name for those who speak their praises of God when they have no pleasure in what they praise. We call them hypocrites. Jesus said, “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me’” (Matthew 15:7–8). This fact — that authentic praise means consummate pleasure and that the highest end of man is to drink deeply of this pleasure for God’s glory — was perhaps the most liberating discovery I have ever made.

John Piper 

Our Good Is His Glory

“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6)

One common objection to Christian Hedonism is that it puts the interests of man above the glory of God — that it puts my happiness above God’s honor. But Christian Hedonism most emphatically does not do this.

To be sure, we Christian Hedonists endeavor to pursue our interest and our happiness with all our might. We endorse the resolution of the young Jonathan Edwards: “Resolved: To endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.”

But we have learned from the Bible (and from Edwards!) that God’s interest is to magnify the fullness of his glory by spilling over in mercy to us — to us sinners, who desperately need him.

Therefore, the pursuit of our interest and our happiness, even if it costs us our lives, is never above God’s interest and God’s happiness and God’s glory, but always in God’s. One of the most precious truths in the Bible is that God’s greatest interest is to glorify the wealth of his grace by making sinners happy in him — in him!

When we humble ourselves like little children and put on no airs of self-sufficiency, but run happily into the joy of our Father’s embrace, the glory of his grace is magnified and the longing of our soul is satisfied. Our interest and his glory become one.

When Jesus promises in Matthew 6:6, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you,” this is a reward he wants us to seek. He does not lure us with joy we shouldn’t have! But this reward — this joy — is the overflow of turning away from human praise, and going into our closet to seek God.

Therefore, Christian Hedonists do not put their happiness above God’s glory. They put their happiness in God himself and discover the glorious truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

 

John Piper

The “I Will” of God

“Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it. And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory in her midst.” (Zechariah 2:4–5)

There are mornings when I wake up feeling fragile. Vulnerable. It’s often vague. No single threat. No one weakness. Just an amorphous sense that something is going to go wrong and I will be responsible.

It’s usually after a lot of criticism. Or maybe after a lot of expectations that have deadlines, and that seem too big and too many.

As I look back over about 50 years of such periodic mornings, I am amazed how the Lord Jesus has preserved my life. And my ministry. The temptation to run away from the stress has never won out — not yet anyway. This is amazing. I worship my great God for this.

Instead of letting me sink into a paralysis of fear, or run to a mirage of greener grass, he has awakened a cry for help and then answered with concrete promises.

Here’s an example. This is recent. I woke up feeling emotionally fragile. Weak. Vulnerable. I prayed: “Lord, help me. I’m not even sure how to pray.”

An hour later I was reading in Zechariah, seeking the help I had cried out for. It came.

“Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it. And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory in her midst.” (Zechariah 2:4–5)

There will be such prosperity and growth for the people of God that Jerusalem will not be able to be walled in any more. “The multitude of people and livestock” will be so many that Jerusalem will be like many villages spreading out across the land without walls.

Prosperity is nice, but what about protection?

To which God says in verse 5, “I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord.” Yes. That’s it. That is the promise. The “I will” of God. That is what I need.

And if it is true for the vulnerable villages of Jerusalem, it is true for me a child of God. That is how I apply the Old Testament promises to God’s people. All the promises are yes to me in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20). There is a “how much more” after every promise for those who are in Christ. God will be a “wall of fire all around” me. Yes. He will. He has been. And he will be.

And it gets better. Inside that fiery wall of protection he says, “And I will be the glory in her midst.” God is never content to give us the protection of his fire; he aims to give us the pleasure of his presence. I love the “I wills” of God!

John Piper 

Go on to the Meal

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! (Psalm 34:8)

To you who say you have never tasted the glory of God, I say, you have tasted many of its appetizers.

Have you ever looked up at the sky? Have you ever been hugged? Have you ever sat in front of a warm fire? Have you ever walked in the woods, sat by a lake, lain in a summer hammock? Have you ever drunk your favorite drink on a hot day or eaten anything good?

Every desire is either a devout or a distorted enticement to the glory of heaven.

You say you haven’t tasted God’s glory. I say, you have tasted the appetizers. Go on to the meal. Go on to God himself.

You have seen the shadows; look at the substance. You have walked in the warm rays of the day; turn and look at the sun itself — yes, through the protective and sharpening lens of the gospel. You have heard echoes of God’s glory everywhere; tune your heart to the original music.

The best place to get your heart tuned is at the cross of Jesus Christ. “We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

If you want the most concentrated display of the glory of God, look at Jesus in the Gospels, and look especially at the cross. This will focus your eyes and tune your heart and waken your taste buds so that you will see and hear and taste the glory of the true God everywhere.

That is what you were made for. I plead with you: don’t throw your life away on shadows. God made you to see and savor his glory. Pursue that with all your heart and above all else. You have tasted the appetizers. Now go on to the full banquet.

John Piper 

The Giver Gets the Glory

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 1:11–12)

It is very good news that God designs his glory to be magnified through the exercise of his grace.

To be sure, God is glorified through the power of his wrath (Romans 9:22), but repeatedly the New Testament (and the Old Testament, for example, Isaiah 30:18) says that we should experience God’s grace so that God gets glory.

Ponder how this works in the prayer of 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12.

Paul prays that God would fulfill our good resolves.

How? He prays that they would be done “by [God’s] power.” That is, that they would be “[works] of faith.”

Why? So that Jesus would be glorified in us.

That means the giver gets the glory. God gave the power. God gets the glory. We have faith; he gives power. We get the help; he gets the glory. That’s the deal that keeps us humble and happy, and keeps him supreme and glorious.

Then Paul says that this glorification of Christ is “according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus.”

God’s answer to Paul’s prayer that we rely on God’s power to do good works is grace. God’s power to enable you to do what you resolve to do is grace.

That’s the way it works in the New Testament over and over. Trust God for gracious enabling, and he gets the glory when the help comes.

We get the help. He gets the glory.

That’s why Christian living, not just Christian conversion, is good news.

John Piper 

Our Good Is His Glory

“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6)

One common objection to Christian Hedonism is that it puts the interests of man above the glory of God — that it puts my happiness above God’s honor. But Christian Hedonism most emphatically does not do this.

To be sure, we Christian Hedonists endeavor to pursue our interest and our happiness with all our might. We endorse the resolution of the young Jonathan Edwards: “Resolved: To endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.”

But we have learned from the Bible (and from Edwards!) that God’s interest is to magnify the fullness of his glory by spilling over in mercy to us — to us sinners, who desperately need him.

Therefore, the pursuit of our interest and our happiness, even if it costs us our lives, is never above God’s interest and God’s happiness and God’s glory, but always in God’s. One of the most precious truths in the Bible is that God’s greatest interest is to glorify the wealth of his grace by making sinners happy in him — in him!

When we humble ourselves like little children and put on no airs of self-sufficiency, but run happily into the joy of our Father’s embrace, the glory of his grace is magnified and the longing of our soul is satisfied. Our interest and his glory become one.

When Jesus promises in Matthew 6:6, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you,” this is a reward he wants us to seek. He does not lure us with joy we shouldn’t have! But this reward — this joy — is the overflow of turning away from human praise, and going into our closet to seek God.

Therefore, Christian Hedonists do not put their happiness above God’s glory. They put their happiness in God himself and discover the glorious truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

John Piper 

Created by God for Glory

PRAY OVER THIS

“The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

1 Corinthians 15:56-58

 

PONDER THIS

What’s the difference between a diamond and a lump of coal? Both are made of carbon. The coal is carbon in humiliation; the diamond is carbon in glory. They are the same substance, only improved and changed. Likewise, one day we’re going to go from corruption to incorruption. We’re going to go from dishonor to glory.

None of us has ever even seen a man as man was intended to be. You don’t realize what God made when He made you. Centuries of sin have marred and scarred and debilitated mankind.

Suppose you had never seen a railroad train. There’s a train wreck nearby, and I take you out to see it and say, “There’s a train.” Have you seen a train? It’s debatable. I guess you could say you’ve seen a train, but what you’ve really seen is a train wreck. One of these days, all the limitations of this world will fall away, and there will be no more weakness, no more sighing, no more crying, no more dying, and no more trying. We will have that perfection God wants us to have.

How should victory in Jesus change your perspective on life today?

How does it encourage you to remember the hope of glory?

PRACTICE THIS

Pray and ask God to help you live for your hope in eternity rather than for the temporary pleasures of today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The “I Will” of God

“Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it. And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory in her midst.” (Zechariah 2:4–5)

There are mornings when I wake up feeling fragile. Vulnerable. It’s often vague. No single threat. No one weakness. Just an amorphous sense that something is going to go wrong and I will be responsible.

It’s usually after a lot of criticism. Or maybe after a lot of expectations that have deadlines, and that seem too big and too many.

As I look back over about 50 years of such periodic mornings, I am amazed how the Lord Jesus has preserved my life. And my ministry. The temptation to run away from the stress has never won out — not yet anyway. This is amazing. I worship my great God for this.

Instead of letting me sink into a paralysis of fear, or run to a mirage of greener grass, he has awakened a cry for help and then answered with concrete promises.

Here’s an example. This is recent. I woke up feeling emotionally fragile. Weak. Vulnerable. I prayed: “Lord, help me. I’m not even sure how to pray.”

An hour later I was reading in Zechariah, seeking the help I had cried out for. It came.

“Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it. And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory in her midst.” (Zechariah 2:4–5)

There will be such prosperity and growth for the people of God that Jerusalem will not be able to be walled in any more. “The multitude of people and livestock” will be so many that Jerusalem will be like many villages spreading out across the land without walls.

Prosperity is nice, but what about protection?

To which God says in verse 5, “I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord.” Yes. That’s it. That is the promise. The “I will” of God. That is what I need.

And if it is true for the vulnerable villages of Jerusalem, it is true for me a child of God. That is how I apply the Old Testament promises to God’s people. All the promises are yes to me in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20). There is a “how much more” after every promise for those who are in Christ. God will be a “wall of fire all around” me. Yes. He will. He has been. And he will be.

And it gets better. Inside that fiery wall of protection he says, “And I will be the glory in her midst.” God is never content to give us the protection of his fire; he aims to give us the pleasure of his presence. I love the “I wills” of God!

John Piper