God-centered resources from the ministry of John Piper

One of the greatest hope-killers is that you have tried for so long to change and have not succeeded. Now you look back and think: What’s the use? Even if I could experience a breakthrough, there would be so little time left to live in my new way it wouldn’t make much difference compared to so many decades of failure.

That’s not true. Suppose you only had five years left to live with a new victory over some old way. Or suppose you only had a year, or a month, or an hour? Would it matter?

At this point stir the thief on the cross into your thinking. At first he was railing at Jesus (Matthew 27:44). Then he was broken by what he saw and repented and cried out for mercy: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Jesus received this faith-filled cry and promised, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).

Then the former robber lived for another hour or so before he died. He was changed. He lived on the cross as a new man with new attitudes and actions (no more reviling). But 99.99% of his life was wasted. Did the last couple hours of newness matter?

They mattered infinitely. This former robber, like all of us, will stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of his life. “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2Corinthians 5:10). How will his life witness in that day to his new birth and his union with Christ?

The last hours will tell the story. This man was new. His faith was real. He is truly united to Christ. Christ’s righteousness is his. His sins are forgiven. That is what the final hours will proclaim at the last judgment. His change mattered. It was, and it will be, a beautiful testimony to the power of God’s grace and the reality of his faith and his union with Christ.

Now back to our struggle with change. I am not saying that struggling believers are unsaved like the robber was. I am simply saying: the last years and the last hours of life matter.

If in the last 1% of our lives we can get a victory over some longstanding sinful habit or hurtful defect in our personality, it will be a beautiful testimony now to the power of grace; and it will be an added witness (not the only one) at the last judgment of our faith in Christ and our union with him.

Take heart, struggler. Keeping asking, seeking, knocking. Keep looking to Christ. If God gets glory by saving robbers in the 11th hour, he surely has his purposes why he has waited till now to give you the breakthrough you have sought for decades.

(This is the final post in the series, “9 Reasons I’m a Photographer.”)

(Urban Expression, Public Park, Beijing, China)

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the ultimate example of fusing heaven and earth, and serves as the ultimate source of inspiration for those engaged in artistic pursuits.

All art is "representational" in that it portrays the god whom the artist serves.

In his article, Ten Commandments for Artists, Makoto Fujimura writes,

Art reaches to both heaven and earth, fusing them together. If we attempt to do this in our wisdom, the result will be a greater schism between heaven and earth. Christ is the ultimate example of this fusing: the incarnation of Christ, the divine becoming a man, therefore, is the greatest example in which all artists can find inspiration. Christ's unique significance for the artist goes even deeper than mere inspiration. I believe that He is the only true source of inspiration available to us to learn from. Christ's incarnation resolves the most difficult dichotomy that exists for an artist; that is the dichotomy of form and content.

(Backyard Glory, Minneapolis, Minnesota)

What does Paul mean when he says we will get glory? He prays “that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him” (2 Thessalonians 1:12). In what sense will we be glorified in Jesus?

Don Carson provides an insightful explanation in A Call to Spiritual Reformation.

First, a challenge related to what Paul does not mean:

The Christian’s whole desire, at its best and highest, is that Jesus Christ be praised. It is always a wretched bastardization of our goals when we want to win glory for ourselves instead of for him.... Lying at the heart of all sin is the desire to be the center, to be like God. So if we take on Christian service, and think of such service as the vehicle that will make us central, we have paganized Christian service; we have domesticated Christian living and set it to servitude in a pagan cause. (57–58)

So then, what does it mean for us to be glorified in Christ?

Paul is well aware of God’s urgent insistence, ‘I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another’ (Isa. 42:8). But there is another shading to glory that makes it entirely appropriate to talk of the Christian’s glorification.... [O]ur glorification itself becomes the most spectacular means of bringing him glory.... Christ is glorified, he receives the praise that is his due, as we are glorified, as we are conformed to his likeness. On the last day, Jesus Christ will be glorified in us on account of what we have become by his grace, and we will be glorified in him on account of what he has done for us. (58–59)

Our glory will not be one that competes with Christ's. There is “another shading to glory”—a shade of glory in us that serves to magnify the glory of Christ and what he has accomplished for us.

You can now listen to the Wheaton Alumni Symposium. The panel was Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and John Piper. They discussed changes in Evangelicalism over the last 40 years (the length of time since they all graduated from college).

It begins with a 10-minute intro from each; then there's some discussion among themselves; and it closes with some questions from the audience.

Leprosy can make life a lot simpler. Being terminally ill often cultivates the clarity of mind that enables people to approach things that are good for them, but which previously made them cower.

Remember the four lepers of Samaria? The city was being starved to death under siege from Syria, and these four were stuck outside the gate between the city and the Syrian army.

They deliberated,

If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die. (2 Kings 7:4)

The question wasn’t whether or not they'd die. That was the no-brainer that their leprosy helped them recognize. The issue, then, was simply when and where: Next week in the city? Tomorrow at the gate? Or today at the hands of our enemies?

They concluded that their enemies could do nothing more to them than what nature had already assigned. And, unlike their city and their skin, their enemies might even show them mercy.

So, in this case, the most frightful prospect was actually the wisest, most fruitful way to go.

For Noël on Mother’s Day

She sits, the needles in her hands
looping and hooking her heart
into this little blue blanket,
and without any pink strands
stitches closed her wounds.

I'm working on a book on the new birth. The final chapter is designed to give encouragements for personal evangelism. I just added a quote by C. S. Lewis that I love. Here’s the whole section to help you move toward people:

Find People Interesting

Be encouraged that simply finding people interesting and caring about them is a beautiful pathway into their heart. Evangelism gets a bad reputation when we are not really interested in people and don’t seem to care about them. People really are interesting. The person you are talking to is an amazing creation of God with a thousand interesting experiences. Remember the words of C. S. Lewis:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. (The Weight of Glory, 14-15)

Yet, most of us don’t think this way. The gods bore us and we return to our video games. Very few people are interested in others. If you really find their story interesting, and care about them, they may open up to you and want to hear your story—Christ’s story.

It is essential to say grand old truths again and again. There is ample evidence in the Bible that they are quickly forgotten.

Remember, there are different kinds of forgetting.

One is that great truths are gone out of the mind never to return. The other is that they are gone out of the mind for a season (a day, a year) while we languish in discouragement and sin.

Don’t follow Israel here:

“And the people of Israel did not remember the LORD their God, who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies on every side.” (Judges 8:34)

“I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder.... This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder.” (2 Peter 1:12-13; 3:1)

To mark the 60th anniversary of the birth of the modern State of Israel, let’s listen to a voice from 100 years before this state was born.

Who was it that said in 1867 that the existence of the Jews in the modern world was an insurmountable obstacle in the way of reasonable unbelief? It was J. C. Ryle. And who was he? J. I. Packer, quoting Richard Hobson and calling it a “just estimate,” describes Ryle like this:

He was great in stature; great in mental power; great in spirituality; great as a preacher and expositor of God’s most holy Word; great in hospitality; great as a writer of Gospel tracts; great as an author of works that will long live; great as a Bishop of the Reformed Evangelical Protestant Church of England, of which he was a noble defender; great as first Bishop of Liverpool. I am bold to say, that perhaps few men in the 19th century did as much for God, for truth, and for righteousness, among the English speaking race, and in the world, as our late Bishop. (Faithfulness and Holiness: The Witness of J. C. Ryle, 13-14)

Ryle observed the astonishing unlikeliness of the existence of the Jewish people in his day when so many other peoples of history have vanished or have been assimilated. Here is what he said:

I have not the least idea how questions like these are answered by those who profess to deny the divine authority of Scripture.... In fact it is my firm conviction that among the many difficulties of infidelity there is hardly any one more really insurmountable than the separate continuance of the Jewish nation.... God has many witnesses to the truth of the Bible, if men would only examine them and listen to their evidence. But you may depend on it, there is no witness so unanswerable as one who always keeps standing up, and living, and moving before the eyes of mankind. That witness is the Jew...

I assert that the peculiar position which Israel occupies in the earth is easily explicable in the light of holy Scripture. They are a people reserved and kept separate by God for a grand and special purpose. That purpose is to make them a means of exhibiting to the world in the latter days God’s hatred of sin and unbelief, and God’s almighty power and almighty compassion. They are kept separate that they may finally be saved, converted and restored to their own land. They are reserved and preserved, in order that God may show in them as on a platform, to angels and men, how greatly he hates sin, and yet how greatly he can forgive, and how greatly he can convert. Never will that be realized as it will in that day when “all Israel shall be saved.” (Are You Ready for the End of Time? 137-138)

Confirming Ryle’s assessment of the apologetic power of Israel, Anne Rice, the vampire novelist that several years ago turned from 30 years of atheism, said,

I stumbled upon a mystery without a solution, a mystery so immense that I gave up trying to find an explanation because the whole mystery defied belief. The mystery was the survival of the Jews.... It was this mystery that drew me back to God. (Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, 308-309)

None of this is a commentary on the prophetic place of the political State of Israel. It is a commentary on the eschatological meaning of the enduring reality of the people of Israel. And I think it is right.

For my thoughts on the place of the State of Israel see “Do Jews Have a Divine Right in the Promised Land?”

Watch John Piper talk about the new building we plan to move into this summer.

Read more about this project.

The following meditation comes from my devotional lingering over Psalm 96:7. All the modern versions translate it, “Ascribe to the Lord...strength” (ESV, NIV, NASB). Only the KJV renders it with the literal, “Give unto the Lord...strength.”

There’s nothing unusual about this Hebrew word “give” (yahab). It’s used over sixty times in the Old Testament in all the ordinary ways the word give is used.

The word ascribe in Psalm 96:7 is an interpretation. It’s a paraphrase. It’s a good interpretation, I think, but, as with all paraphrases, it short circuits our reflection...

Read the whole article. 

As the carnage from Cyclone Nargis moves toward 50,000 dead and beyond, there is a way to pray and act:

1. Be softened to the pain nearby.

The Good Samaritan knew nothing of the calamities in first century Burma, but was commended by the Lord for mercies at hand (Luke 10:25-37).

2. Pray for the followers of Christ in Myanmar:

• That they would be still and know that God is God (Psalm 46:10; 100:3).
• That they would be awakened from the illusion that this life is long or sure or the main point of eternal existence (James 4:14).
• That they would be given a new vision of the supreme value of Christ who promises his followers that famine, nakedness, and death will not separate them from his love (Romans 8:35).
• That God would meet their needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus, so that they might have to give to those in need (Philippians 4:19; Ephesians 4:28).

3. Pray for the millions of unbelievers near the calamity and far from it:

• That they would see the helplessness of man before the Power that rules the world and fly to Christ who alone delivers from the final cyclone of God’s wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
• That they would not respond like the people in Revelation (9:20; 16:9, 11) who did not repent at the devastation but cursed God.
• That they would hear the best news in all the world—not the news of health, wealth, and prosperity in this world, but the news that Christ became a curse for us (Galatians 3:13) so that in him we can be more than conquerors in every calamity of life (Romans 8:37).

4. Pray for those of us who live in the seeming security and prosperity of America:

• That we would see what is about to break over us in due time—either collectively as God removes the hand of his providential restraint, or individually as one by one we are whisked to the hospital, then wheeled to the nursing home, and then carried to the funeral home (Hebrews 9:27).
• That millions would be made to see this and repent from the adultery of treasuring anything more than Christ (James 4:4).

5. Give money to replenish the coffers of compassion “since you also are in the body” (Hebrews 13:3).

6. Muster a team from your church, and when the doors are open, be ready to go.

This kind of going always has the promise of a special, “I will be with you to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Luke says it so quickly, so matter-of-factly: “[Herod] killed James the brother of John with the sword” (Acts 12:2). In the flow of the story this little phrase sets the stage for Peter’s dramatic prison rescue by the angel. So that’s what we remember. When Peter later wrote, “The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials” (2 Peter 2:9), this is the sort of rescue that easily comes to mind.

But the night that James sat in prison the angel didn’t come. I’m sure he prayed for an angel. He knew God could send one if he wanted to. An angel had already rescued him and the other disciples once before, in chapter 5. But this night there was no bright light, no chains falling off, no sleeping guards. Just desperate prayers and fitful dozing—if he slept at all.

In the morning James was still in jail when the dreaded voice of the captain of the guard shouted, “Bring out the prisoner!” There was an anxiety-filled, prayerful walk to the place of execution. There was a pronouncement of guilt. Possibly there was an offer of pardon in exchange for recanting, followed by a refusal. There was a raised sword. There was a wince of fearful anticipation. No deliverance.

Or was there?

Jesus allowed the sword to fall on James as intentionally as he opened Peter’s prison door. So the death of James is as crucial for us to remember as the rescue of Peter. Why did God let James die?

This question is relevant because at some point most of us will find ourselves facing death, pleading for deliverance, and not receiving what we think we are asking for. And it points to a difficult lesson that all of Jesus’ disciples must learn: Jesus often has different priorities than we do. What may feel desperately urgent to us may not be urgent to him—at least not in the same way.

Remember how Jesus slept in the boat during the storm? The disciples panicked at the fear of drowning and cried out, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38). He calmed the storm and then said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”

Jesus’ lesson was clear: you’re afraid of the wrong thing. Don’t fear what or who can kill your body, but fear and trust me because I rule over storms and death (Matthew 10:28). Jesus knew that there were more dangerous “storms” ahead for the disciples, ones that would kill them. They needed to know whom to fear.

And so do we. Unless Jesus returns first (maranatha!), every one of us will face a storm that will kill us. And our initial response may be similar to the disciples’ in the boat: Jesus, don’t you care that I am perishing? In that moment we need to remember that he cares deeply. He who wept beside Lazarus’ tomb will weep with us—and he will raise us. And we need to remember that he knows what death is like and will be with us and help us say as he said to the Father, “Not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39).

And we also need to remember James, who faced death “refusing to accept release that [he] might rise again to a better life” (Hebrews 11:35). There is the real key to understanding Acts 12:2: Jesus let James die because he had a better life to give him. James was not being neglected by Jesus. He was in fact the first of the Twelve to experience what Jesus prayed for in John 17:24: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me from the foundation of the world.” Peter’s deliverance from prison was remarkable. But he lived to die another day. James experienced the true deliverance: death being swallowed up by the Resurrection and the Life.

And that is what Jesus longs and intends to give to us too. That’s what he endured the Father’s wrath on the cross to purchase for us. He wants us to see and enjoy and rejoice in his glory forever.

There will come a time when Jesus’ prayer for us to be with him will overrule our prayer for prolonged earthly life. And when it does, we will experience a life so far better, richer, fuller, purer, and more joyful that we will shake our heads in wonder that we were ever reluctant to leave here.

May God cause this reality to become more real to us all.

* * *

Recommended related resources:

• "What Happens When You Die: At Home With the Lord" - John Piper
• "Joy's Eternal Increase: Edwards on the Beauty of Heaven" - Sam Storms

Most people think of a sticker as an insignificant little decoration to go on a car bumper or a kid's toy or a guitar case. But I've seen a sticker accomplish significant things.

Once, at a little Mexican place called El Mirador in Pismo Beach, CA, I met a middle-aged man sitting across the booth from his elderly father. While I was ordering, he read my T-shirt.

"What does 'Don't Waste Your Life' mean?" He had a gruff voice, a pony-tail under a baseball cap, and smelled like cigarettes.

"Well, what do you think it means to not waste your life?" I asked.

"You just gotta work hard and be good to people and love your family as best you can," he said.

I handed him a sticker. On the front was the phrase, "Don't Waste Your Life," and on the back was a single sentence:

The greatest cause in the world is joyfully rescuing people from hell, meeting their earthly needs, making them glad in God, and doing it with a kind, serious pleasure that makes Christ look like the Treasure he is.

I talked with him for a few minutes about why that statement is true and why a life for Christ is more than all good intentions and family and hard work.

There was no miraculous breakthrough at that little Mexican restaurant. He probably finished his taco and had a cigarette. But I gave him the sticker, and I pray God uses the truth on it to stir his heart and open his eyes to the only lasting treasure in the universe: Jesus Christ. If God is "able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine," then he is certainly able to use a sticker for His kingdom.

We have several new products that we hope will help you reach others with the message that Jesus is a worthwhile treasure—these stickers, as well as a DWYL-themed poster and some journals. Of course, in themselves they are insignificant, but we hope and trust that through Christ, they will become tools to accomplish his significant work.

God motivates us to feel and to do what we should by calling to our minds his past performances of love and his future promises of love—some near, some far.

Be sure that you are connected to the way God means to motivate you with the backward look and the distant forward look and the near forward look. For example:

Motivation by the backward look:

Forgive one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32)

Motivation by the distant forward look:

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. (Matthew 5:12)

Let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. (Hebrews 13:13-14)

Motivation by the near forward look:

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

To lay a trap for an animal there has to be some truth to attract him. It must at least look like a meal even if the iron clamps lie just beneath. Mark says the Pharisees came “to trap" Jesus. So they put some truth over the trap. They said,

“Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God.” (Mark 12:14)

This is amazing insight coming from those who do not live it. Appearances were everything to the Pharisees. “They do all their deeds to be seen by others” (Matthew 23:5). It is frightening how much theological and moral wisdom can be spoken and not lived.

Twice they say that truth-telling depends on freedom from the fear of man.

1. “We know you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion.” Truth is compromised where we fear man’s disapproval. Is our finger in the text or in the wind?
2. “You are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God.” Literally: “You do not look at a man’s face, but teach the way of God in truth.” In other words, we will not be reliable truth tellers if we keep one eye on the facial expressions of people we need to please.

So let the hypocrites be our teacher today. Do as they say, not as they do. Fear no man. Tell the truth. Be like Jesus.

Confused about or unfamiliar with the "doctrines of grace"? Do you want to learn more about their biblical foundations and implications for the Christian life?

We've just updated Pastor John's TULIP seminar with new audio and video.

In this seminar he goes through all five points—Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints. He identifies them from the Scriptures, considering the arguments against them, and explaining why this package called "Calvinism"—though controversial—is wonderfully good news.

(This post is reason #8 in the series, “9 Reasons I’m a Photographer.”)

(Urban Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)

Christian cultural expression should not focus solely on the beautiful, but should include the flawed.

In his book Art and the Bible, Francis Schaeffer writes,

The Christian worldview can be divided into what I call a major and a minor theme.

First, the minor theme is the abnormality of the revolting world…

Men who have revolted from God and not come back to Christ are eternally lost; they see their meaninglessness…

There is a defeated and sinful side to the Christian’s life. If we are at all honest, we must admit that in this life there is no such thing as totally victorious living.

The major theme…is the meaningfulness and purposefulness of life…

God is there, God exists. Therefore, all is not absurd.

Man is made in God’s image and so man has significance.

[This] rests on the existence of the infinite-personal God who exists and who has a character and who has created all things, especially man in his own image.

Man is fallen and flawed, but he is redeemable on the basis of Christ’s work. This is beautiful. This is optimism.

If our Christian art only emphasizes the major theme, then it is not fully Christian but simply romantic art.

On the other hand, it is possible for a Christian to so major on the minor theme, emphasizing the lostness of man and the abnormality of the universe, that he is equally unbiblical...

[F]or the Christian, the major theme is to be dominant. (56-58)

(Urban Slums of “Garbage City,” Cairo, Egypt)

If you read even one blog regularly, RSS is for you. It will save you time, I promise.

Some of you may be wondering, "Doesn't everyone use RSS?" The answer is no; less than 6% of internet users take advantage of this extraordinarily helpful technology.

I've read lots of posts on what RSS is and how to use it, but they're limited in their helpfulness. There are just too many options out there to fully explain any one of them in a post that tackles RSS as a whole. So I am going to use the majority of this article to help non-RSS-users get started on Google Reader.

If you follow these instructions, you will be subscribed to your favorite sites and already saving time by the end of this article.

What Is RSS and Why Is It Worthwhile?

The acronym RSS stands for a couple things. The most helpful as far as a clear explanation of what it's for is "Real Simple Syndication."

RSS is a technology that allows you to subscribe to any website that has one of these in the address bar. You can then track every site you're subscribed to without having to go to each individual site.

If you're like me there are a couple websites that you love to read. Without RSS, I would be looking at these sites regularly to see if there were new material. Depending on how often I checked, I wouldn't see anything new most times I visited.

With RSS, I never again have to go to a site that has no new material. I subscribe to the sites I enjoy and am updated every time they post.

(This is especially helpful for keeping track of those bloggers who we want to read but who only post every 3 months.)

Why I'm Focusing on Google Reader

If you're not a current RSS-user and would like to be, my hope is that by the end of this article you'd have everything you need to begin. In order to do that, I need to pick one feedreader to show you how to use. ("Feedreaders" are the programs that people use to collect and manage their RSS subscriptions.)

I've chosen to use Google Reader for 3 reasons:

• It's free and available to everyone no matter what computer or browser you use.
• It is by far the most popular feedreader that's out there right now. On both the blogs I write for, Google subscribers are between 35-40% of the readership. The next most popular feedreader only claims about 5% of readers.
• It's really easy to use, so let's get started.

Setting Up Google Reader

Adding a Subscription in Google Reader

1. Select "Add Subscription" from the left column.
2. Type in the address of a blog you want to subscribe to and click "Add."

Adding a Subscription from Elsewhere Online

1. When you are visiting a site that you want to subscribe to, click on the orange icon in the address bar or on a link provided on the site.

You will either see a page like this:

Or like this:

2. On either page, select Google as the reader you want to subscribe with.
3. On the first page, you will need to click "Subscribe Now."
4. On either page, choose "Add to Google Reader."

Reading and Managing your Subscriptions

Reading Options

You now have a few of your favorite blogs listed in the left column of your Google reader page. The best way to go through your feeds is up to you. Here are some options.

• Home, at the top of the left column, is where you can see new, unread posts listed with just a few lines of content.
• All Items, just below "Home," is where you can see new, unread posts listed with all their content.
• Selecting an individual feed from the list in the left column allows you to see new posts as well as scroll down through older ones.

Scanning Options

In the upper right corner you will see tabs for "Expanded view" and "List view." These allow you to decide whether you see all content as you scroll through your feeds or just titles and the first few words.

Marking as Read

You will mark a post as read when you click on it. Scrolling through posts will also mark them as read, although you can turn this feature off in settings if you want to. Finally, if you want to mark all your new posts as read at once, you can do so at the top of the "All Items" page.

Unsubscribing

When you change your mind about being subscribed to a blog, you can unsubscribe by going to the settings in the upper right corner.

You're All Set!

As you poke around in Google Reader, I'm sure you'll find more nifty ways to improve your RSSing. But for now, you should have what you need to go blog wild.

(Of course, we'd love it if you subscribed to Desiring God.)

Happy reading!

(I originally published this article at my wife's blog. If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comments there, and I'll try to help.)

When we work as unto the Lord we serve others even more excellently than if serving them were our main goal. Working as unto the Lord does not mean serving God instead of other people.

Paul tells slaves to obey their masters—and not just to obey, but to obey in everything. It sounds absurd, but he explains:

Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men…. You are serving the Lord Christ.

So slaves should obey their masters completely (at least completely enough that Paul didn’t feel a need to qualify). Apparently complete obedience to their masters is a key part of how they really serve Jesus, not their masters.

They serve Jesus by working even better than they already are for a person they’re not actually, in the end, even working for.

This command to slaves comes after a list of specific examples of other ways to live “as for the Lord and not for men”:

• Wives, submit to your husbands.
• Husbands, love your wives.
• Children, obey your parents.
• Fathers, don’t provoke your kids.

Obeying the parts of that list that apply to us is what it looks like for us to live for God and not for other people. But who is being immediately influenced and served by this obedience to God?

Other people.

• When wives submit to their husbands for the Lord who benefits? Husbands.
• When husbands love their wives for the Lord who benefits? Wives.
• When children obey their parents for the Lord who benefits? Parents.
• When fathers encourage their kids for the Lord who benefits? Kids.
• When slaves obey their masters for the Lord who benefits? Masters.

Do these beneficiaries deserve our submission, love, obedience, encouragement, or work? Not always.

But we’re not doing it for them. We do it for the Lord.

We serve God by serving others. We love him by loving others.

We are not standing in the middle of two masters with each calling our name. We do not have to turn our backs on one to follow the other.

No, God stands on the far side of the other people in our lives. We can only reach out to him if we reach out to them. We live for them to live for him.

They’ll receive blessing and we’ll receive Jesus.

I have suggested that we should dream of ways to make much of Christ in the way we use our economic stimulus checks that will be arriving soon. That raises the question how we do that if our generosity should be done in secret. “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matthew 6.3). Here’s what I think the Bible says about that.

Jesus warns of two dangers when it comes to what unbelievers think of us...

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Elder D. J. Ward, pastor of Lexington's Main Street Baptist Church for the past 19 years, died of complications from lung cancer Friday at Hospice Care Center at St. Joseph Hospital. What the Lexington Herald-Leader did not say about this amazing African-American is that he was a powerful spokesman for the glorious God worshiped through the wall-to-wall window called Calvinism.

I thank God for the one conference we had together. He invited me to the Lexington Pastors’ Conference at his church. I had no idea there was such a self-consciously reformed gathering of mainly African-American pastors almost totally distinct, as far as I could tell, from the resurgence of younger black Reformed brothers present on the internet today. But there it was thriving from around the country under the uncompromising sway of this giant.

Lord, thank you for over 40 years of Bible-saturated ministry with the majesty of Grace at the center. May the sowing of this seed in the ground bring forth a thousand sprouting lovers of the Truth.

You can leave words of condolence and remembrance at the Kentucky.com Guest Book.

It’s been a busy spring for Pastor John.

Between two clusters of spring events, this year’s writing leave is an especially welcomed change of pace.

March and April took John to San Luis-Obispo for the Desiring God Regional Conference, to Wales for New Word Alive, and to Louisville for Together for the Gospel. All this in the midst of pastoring and bringing the new birth sermon series to a close.

After his leave, John is scheduled to begin a new sermon series, return to Louisville on Memorial Day to speak at New Attitude, and join a colloquium of pastors outside Chicago connected with The Gospel Coalition.

But for now: writing.

John wrote the following last week to ask for prayer from Bethlehem Baptist and Desiring God:

Dear praying friends,

For the next four weeks (April 22–May 22), I will be holed up working on a couple books, one on marriage and the other on regeneration. O how I need God’s help through your prayers. There is a world of difference between God-anointed work and just plain hard work. Thank you for praying for truth and wisdom and love and humility and penetrating, compelling expression. . . .

Leaning on grace through your prayers,

Pastor John

Here's a list of forthcoming books, some of which he is working on during this leave.

• History’s Most Spectacular Sin booklet (June, 2008)
• Spectacular Sins: And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ (September, 2008)
• Rethinking Retirement: Finishing Life for the Glory of God (September, 2008)
• John Calvin and His Passion for the Majesty of God (January, 2009)
• A book on Marriage (no title or publication date yet)
• A book on Regeneration (no title or publication date yet)

Please join us in praying that God would graciously anoint John Piper during this season of communing with God and writing for the joy of all peoples.