While I am still figuring out how to upload an animated moon constructed by my husband. This book was given to me on a Sunday. It had been several dry weeks and although I was urged to pick up my bible and read I was procratinating as usual....God will get you always!
The Godward Life, savoring the supremacy of God in all of life... by John Piper
If life is the instinct to survive. What good is joy?
However, if we are made in the image of a holy and just God, how wonderful that He has made us to reason and to laugh.
It is an honor to tell you what a blessing John Piper has been in my life and to present to you some insights from this collection of daily readings that reminds me, that "it is all about GOD"
'its about the joy we find in God here on earth'
'its about journeying in God, to God' and it is definitely not about accomplishments.
Each daily reading brings a new insight into the supreme importance of God, but most of all highlights the interest that this great big God who formed the universe has in me, in the daily meandering of my small mind in my even smaller world...who am I that you are mindful of me...O Lord ! (Psalm 8:4a my emphasis). My Lords eyes range through out the world to strengthen my heart...when I can barely keep myself wholly devoted to Him. (2 Chronicles 16:9). John Pipers sermons led a missionary to tell me... the Lord your God is with you Sally, He is mighty to save you. He takes great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing...(Zephaniah 3:17). This is how good the joy of the Lord is and it gets better.
Of most contemporary teachers renowned for their great books, John Piper is up there with Augustine, Martin Luther and C. S. Lewis. As they do, the Author portrays sincerity and the joy to be found in God through his human frailty. The common denominator is the book of Romans. The book that has taught me much and continues to.
The Preface: Books don’t change people, paragraphs do. Sometimes even sentences. John Piper goes on to site sentences and paragraphs from books by CS Lewis, Luther and The Confessions of Augustine that changed his life. The same can be said of John Piper. Each daily reading has more than one sentence that has impacted my life, and has made me see not just the supremacy of God, but how He revels in me, the interest and joy He receives when I glorify Him in the simple things I do.
Acknowledgments:
John Piper thanks friends..... “for shepherding my four sons toward a passion for the supremacy of God”. My first thought was, wow, this pastor has actually allowed other people to minister to his children, and not only that he is actually acknowledging it and to top it all he is thanking them!
Introduction: The Teacher, the Bible, and a Godward Life...
Teaching that lasts and books that last will be the kind that "bleed the bible"....God wills that there be human teachers of his divine Word, but He wills that teachers be "full of the Word of God." The Bible should "flow from them." Their blood - their books - should be "Bibline."
I try to measure all my speaking and writing and living by this standard: does it spread the passion of the supremacy of God?
‘Lord bring the that day when someone would say about me, I see a sermon walking.’
Loving God for Who He Is:
It would be presumptuous not to thank God for his gifts (forget not all his benefits Psalm 103:2) But it would be idolatry to call the gladness we get from them - Love for God.
The essence of what loving God is enjoying all He is. (Psalm 27:4 ).
‘Enjoy God, am I enjoying God’?
Today’s Mercies for Today’s Troubles: meditation on Mathew 6:34
with every days measure of pain,He gives new mercies. this is the point of Lamentations 3:22-23
sometimes we wonder if we will have the mercy to stand in terrible testing. Yes we will Peter says in (1 Peter 4:14).
God Was Up All Night: meditation on Psalm 121:3
Christ worked for Paul all his life. (2 Timothy 4:17)
The eagerness of God to work for us is astonishing. His eyes are running to and fro, looking for opportunities to work for people who trust him (2 Chronicles 16:9)
When Words are Wind: meditation on Job 6:26
Restoring the soul, not reproving the sore, is the aim of our love.
No need to reprove people who talk against God. No need to defend God or the "Truth" from words that are for the wind alone.
Future Grace:
be obedient because you trust in Future grace not because we are grateful for what God / Jesus did for us...
(Romans 8:32) "He who did not spare His own Son but gave him up for us all (past grace). will He not also freely give us all things with Him (future grace)?
To end I pray that I have whetted your interest the book and encouraged you to get to know God, make Him supreme, master over every thing. I have included these quotes to indicate the extent of impact this book has had on me, my mind. And that the Holy Spirit will guide each one of you to that sentence that will change you.
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