Dear Desiring God Ministries,

Thank you so much for coming to our side as we ministered to the students of Virginia Tech after the April 16th shooting.

We greatly appreciate the 300 books you gave us -- they are almost completely gone. It was so great to see our students leave our weekly meeting with "Don't Waste Your Life" in their hands. Thank you for your generosity -- you truly ministered to our students.

Thanks again.

Sincerely,

The staff of Campus Crusade for Christ at VT

About two and one-half years ago, I lost my father, my brother and my thirteen-year-old nephew in a boating accident in the Gulf of Mexico; two other little nephews were rescued after hours at sea. My nephew, Drake, was unaccounted for at the time of the other rescues and recoveries. Four days later, my husband preached the funerals. He stood above and behind three identical grey caskets that lined the front of my home church. He stood, paradoxically, in the exact place where my family had watched me, even as I had watched them, make our public professions of faith, pray as a deacon, commit to full-time Christian service, and marry. Now, we were once again occupying that same place, but for a reason previously untenable. The day before the funerals, a group of about 40 of us held hands and prayed that God would miraculouly bring Drakey's body home to us in time for the funerals. That did not happen. At the service, two of the three caskets were open; they flanked the closed and empty casket in the middle--the one that had only a frame with a precious little boy's picture atop it. Symbolically, that was Friday, but then came Sunday! Nine days after the accident ,and three days after the funerals, the coroner arrived at my sister's house to say that they were sure they were "bringing Drakey home." Again, the funeral home brought that same matching casket to the funeral service; this time God allowed us to inter it. At Drake's funeral, the casket was still closed, but our eyes and hearts were unabashedly open in wonder and amazement, as we beheld and proclaimed the sovereignty of ou r God. By way of information, our family was strong in the Lord. Our parents were devoted Christians and provided a homelife that was always God-honoring. My husband, our children and I had served with the IMB for 15 1/2 years prior to feeling the Lord's leadership in bringing us back to the States about a year before the accident. Once again, His sovereignty. My brother, who had only been married for a year and one-half to a widow with four little boys, was on the way to Austrailia with his family for missions. My nephew, Drake, had accepted the Lord with his mother only two months before his home-going. His favorite hymn--the one he always sang to his mother-- "Love Lifted Me". ("I was sinking...far from the peaceful shore; but Love lifted me.") The Misery of Job and The Mercy of God was given to me by a family friend. After returning to my home about a month following the funerals, I asked my husband to listen to the CD with me as we followed your reading. As he held me in his arms--there were no words--we heard you say, " I cling with feeble fingers to the ledge of your great grace..." I dissolved in tears. Someone, somehow, had managed to wrench, with amazing precision, the words and emotions from my pent-up soul and express them. I read the words over and over. And even as I traced them with my finger upon that page, God was tracing them upon my being. Apart from God's precious, sustaining Word, your inspired words have brought healing balm and solace to me in the midst of human agony and anguish. As they embraced my spirit, they gave wings to my emotions and expression to my faith. What I had been tau ght, what I had professed, and what I was now being called upon to live out had been experienced by another: God's sovereignty was enough. His timing impeccable. His ways past finding out. His goodness beyond description. Because of God's sovereignty, I feel no desire to question the reason for a "rogue wave on a gorgeous day"; or why He didn't allow my brother to go as a missionary; or why He chose for us to wait nine long days before bringing my nephew home; or why two were rescued and yet three were taken... To all who hesitantly pose the questions to me, I feel somewhat like Job as he tried to answer Jemimah's questions to him. My answer: day-by-day, "the rod of God is becoming the tender kiss of God."

I've been taking the guys in my small group through Future Grace, for the past year (1 section a month), and been reading, listening, consuming Dr. Piper's work on the side. It's totally changing the way I think and feel toward God and others, and for the first time in my 14+ yr. Christian walk, I am able to fight off a bondage to sin, with faith and joy, instead of miserable suffering and pleading to God which didn't grant much victory. To see how I have relied on the flesh and live with a legalistic mindset, which I knew was wrong, but didn't realize I was doing it, and now have hope and to feel excitement in drawing near to God and trusting His promises instead of a vague/generalized truth is mind-blowing. I'm loving it. Thank you and everybody involved. God's glory truly is beautiful.

Today I received a thank-you letter from you for my contribution to the radio project. In it was a testimony from someone whose experience with DG's ministry so closely parallels mine that I felt compelled to tell you about it. In the few years I became aware that, although I was well taught in the doctrines of grace, I had little passion or joy in the Gospel, and I was mourning the lack. I began to long and pray for more of God. About two years ago I was given a copy of Desiring God. The title drew my heart like a magnet, but, along with the joy of what I was reading came the worry that perhaps this teaching was too good to be true. I began to pray that God would show me if what I was reading was truly Biblical. Like the man in your letter, I wondered if this was the same Gospel. However, the more I read the greater was my conviction that outside of the Bible itself, the book was the most God-glorifying piece of writing I'd ever come across. Through it the Holy Spirit has developed in me a hot-heartedness and longing to be totally satisfied with all God is and all His promises in Lord Jesus. The joy of this is heart stopping, breathtaking--beyond my words to express. I absolutely see the immense importance of "seeing truly and feeling duly". Now I'm praying all the time. My mind is continually coming back to God. I am experiencing much more boldness and desire to share the Gospel. I pray every day to be totally satisfied in God and to display that satisfaction by His grace in every way I can. God has taken a very timid quiet person and opened my mouth to encourage "heart hunger" for Him in everyone who will listen. We now have a prayer group in our church that prays for God to awaken our church to desire all He is for us above anything else. I'm giving away copies of The Dangerous Duty of Delight and Desiring God whenever I can. I want to spread this teaching like a holy infection to as many people as I can. I am so grateful to God for leading me to you. This is profoundly of His sovereign grace! I pray that He will continue to prosper His word and work through you.

I would like to express my appreciation to you for making the book The Dangerous Duty of Delight available. It quickly became one of the books that I have both treasured and recommended to others. As a mother of young children, one of the central concerns of my life is evangelizing my children. I have always been conscious that as they observe my Christian life, they see two things: 1. That the way I live my life proves the faith that I express with my words is true. I don’t want there to be a disconnect between my faith and my actions. 2. The Christian life is a life of joy, not grim-faced duty. Unfortunately, last year I ran into some circumstances which severely tested my resolve on the second point. I had been assigned to serve the church in a situation that was overwhelming and frustrating. I was struggling with resentment and anger. It was at this low point, that I read the book The Dangerous Duty of Delight. While I was reading the book, my heart was shouting, “Oh yes! This is what is missing. None of this is any good without the joy.” I was not only convicted of where I had been failing–I was also given new hope for a future of joy-filled service. Thank you again for publishing this book. It was so helpful to me.

I've been reading your book Don't Waste Your Life and God has truly spoken to me through it. I'm 19 and just became a youth minister at a church in South Texas. I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to tell every young person I see - I'm going to beg them not to waste their life on the superficialities of this world - not to be too easily pleased. I feel it would be a great tragedy for me to do otherwise.

By the grace of God, the Lord in His wonderful, loving providence has used the book Don't Waste Your Life to instill within me a fresh passion to do all things for the glory of God. Your book not only confirmed all the things that the Lord was speaking to me through his Spirit by his Word, but has made me rethink my whole life's ambitions. I thank God for your ministry and for this book. They have been used by our Lord to help edify me to a closer relationship with the Father and his Son.

Don't Waste Your Life is changing my life in a radical way. I feel the Lord is calling me to reach college students in this generation, and the next, to become passionately in love with who God really is.

Just wanted to say God bless you and Thank you. My wife and I are currently reading Don't Waste Your Life, which has inspired a weekly chat with our church. Just wanted to say thanks.

I can say without exaggeration that Piper's writing in the first chapter of Let the Nations be Glad has more profoundly impacted my life, ministry direction and theology than any other single chapter of any book (outside those of Scripture) that I have ever read. I am thankful to God that the theological and practical gap that once existed between the worlds of worship and missions is closing. I am eternally grateful that we live in a day when we are seeing God move powerfully to hasten the fulfillment of His promise in Isaiah 61:11: "...As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, So the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.

John Piper's writings have allowed me to understand and freely enjoy the great love that the Father has lavished upon us. He has given me words to encourage others to lavish their love upon the Father in the same unhindered manner.

Thanks for the awesome way in which God uses you to bring glory to himself. Since I read "Desiring God" and other books available on this site (as well as Jonathan Edwards stuff), I've been having a great deal more joy in my walk with the Lord. As someone raised in a Church that often treated faith as a cold duty, finding my strength in the joy of the Lord was kind of foreign. Thanks for pointing me to that joy.

Thank you [John Piper] for the truths you wrote in Desiring God. This December, my husband and I were at an all-time spiritual low after seeing our daughter through open-heart surgery. After three years of intensive praying and focusing on her, we came through surgery beautifully only to find ourselves spiritually burned out instead of refreshed! At a crucial moment, I saw your book title on a shelf and the Spirit said, "Buy it." It has turned my life around. God has used it to bring my husband and I such great joy, and has used it to free us from so many worldly "dependencies," that we daily marvel at the miracle of our life. And you were so right about sharing it in order to double our joy--we can't stop talking about it, and we rejoice to see that others in our daily life are buying the book and getting excited, too. Thank you.

Desiring God has put clear words to the thoughts in my mind that Christianity is more than a set of rules. Thank you for sharing your love of the Savior with me--I've bought and given away 10+ copies of that book, and I'm sure I'll be getting more soon!

I just wanted to express how much I appreciate Desiring God. I'm currently attending Seminary in Jacksonville, Texas. I have enjoyed and learned many insights into Gods Word from John Piper. He preaches and speaks with such passion for the Word of God, I often find myself desiring a deeper relationship with God. The books that you publish are of the greatest quality and I learn so much from them. They've all been so helpful with my personal studies. My first book I ever picked up after surrendering to the ministry was The Supremacy of God in Preaching. I have tried to pattern my preaching after that book, for it speaks the truth of how I should focus on his majesty and proclaim his truths. Thank you for your intense laboring efforts.

…for some reason Desiring God caught my attention. That night I started reading and finished it in a few days. The message was so liberating! It was as though scales fell from my eyes, and I could see wonders I never dreamed of. I read and re-read the book…I have been challenged, enlightened, probed, and delighted with your books. I can't express how much of an influence your writing has made upon my life, my ministry, and every aspect and dimension of my daily routine…Thank you for being an agent of transformation in my perspective of God's greatness and glory and supremacy in all things.

I just wanted to write…to let you know what an important book Desiring God has been for me and my family. It has changed forever my knowledge of God and my outlook on life. We as a family were…asking whether we were to be involved with the work of reaching the unreached peoples with the gospel when we discovered this book and all of the scripture that it totally opened up to us. Dr. Piper's desire to 'push some over the edge' happened to us and we were able to see clearly and resolutely God's desire for us to give ourselves to the task. The thing that makes this book so solid is that Dr. Piper does not use the Bible to add to his thoughts, but it is just one scripture after another brought together in a way that totally makes them come to life and relevance to real life…I must say that my love and respect for the Bible has been renewed. It is there that I will find the knowledge of God…Thank you!

Thank you for the book Desiring God. The theme of it has encouraged me greatly. As a Christian in his early 40's having begun my pilgrimage in my mid-teens, I seem to be going back to the very basic things at the moment. The contents of this book have thrilled me.

Your ministry has been a real blessing to those of us here in (the) Correctional Center who have been able to experience some of the materials we've received. I personally have gained greater understanding of God's Word and have grown stronger in my faith walk since getting my hands on the tapes and books John Piper has helped to bring about. Through sharing these materials and teaching on what I've learned from them, a number of others here have been touched by your ministry as well. Thank you.

It has been the ministry of John Piper and you folks there at Bethlehem that I believe God used more than anything else to restore me. The tape series on Expository Exultation have really moved me with a desire to worship over the text in whatever the teaching or preaching opportunity. I am now working my way through the series on the Mission of Bethlehem Baptist Church. It has changed my perspective in that I have been brought, by God, back to the center of Christianity, which is the exultation of Jesus Christ before men. I have made my life goal…in whatever circumstances God puts me, to spread a passion for the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ in all things for the joy of all peoples.

Again and again I keep returning to John Piper’s books and sermons. It’s like a fresh rain shower; like a window that’s being opened to let in fresh air and a new vision of our most glorious and awesome God. I am a Seminary student and really feel like I need that kind of refreshment and vision …I just wanted to tell you how much I thank God for your ministry and for the inspiration that Piper’s material provides for me here in Germany…I now feel I’ve arrived at savoring what I formerly considered "hard truths" like election and predestination and God’s own passion for His glory. Pastor Piper has been used greatly to kindle a passion within me to live for God’s glory and to desire to see it all around, even here in spiritually dry Germany. I’ve started spreading the Good News of God’s passion for His glory by preaching the message to churches. And sometimes it might be a lot to take in, but it’s the glorious truth!

I just listened to your sermon on the internet "Let Your Passion Be Single: Christian Hedonism Unpacked." I wept through most of the presentation. Because of my church experiences (very painful and negative), I have felt that you had to choose between glorifying God and happiness. Between intellect and emotion. I have fallen victim to both errors. You offer hope for the first time that we can love God with an undivided heart and find in loving Him the supreme happiness and joy for which we long. This truth touches my heart in a way that I cannot fully describe but you have given me a precious gift. Pulled back a veil that has blurred the way of truth. Thank you with all my heart. God bless you and your ministry.

I just returned from my year in China. Thank you so much for sending me tapes of Dr. Piper's sermons this year. Desiring God was such a blessing. I can't begin to tell you how necessary those teaching tapes were for me and my teammates this year.

I praise God for the ministry of DG. For over a year now, I've been fueled and challenged and instructed by the content of this website. Shortly after God finally changed my heart to see the BEAUTY of His sovereignty and freedom (coming to a Reformed understanding of salvation) a friend let me borrow several tapes from the Pleasures of God series. Wonderful! God solidified HIS centrality and majesty in my mind and heart during that time. I am now beginning to teach these principles of Jonathan Edwards and John Piper to those in my circles, and see a growing desire to see more men come to know and delight in the Risen Savior.

As a state chaplain of a maximum-security prison, inmates, and the volunteers who enter the prison for religious programs, expose me to a wide range of theologies. As a reformed theologian I was pleased when I discovered our inmate library had one of your books (A Hunger for God). The problem we have in our state prison chapel programs is we are not authorized to buy any books for the inmate library, they must be donated. After placing a call to DG I was blessed when the representative informed me there would be no problem for us to receive some of your materials. How I was blessed when I saw the invoice, which indicated the bill, was paid by DG. My desire is to see those who are incarcerated grow in their faith, and the resources we received from your organization will be a tremendous aid in their growth. Again, I cannot thank DG enough for the blessing! May God richly bless you as he uses you to build his kingdom.