Whether you are in your twenties or sixties you probably have some long-standing heart-responses you don’t like. These are like reflexes. You don’t choose them. They spring up unintentionally from your heart, usually in response to the people around you.

It may be anger, anxiety, envy, resentment, self-pity, disgust, frustration, discouragement, lust, irritability, impatience, hard-heartedness, brusqueness, unkindness, withdrawnness.

When any one of these attitudes springs up unbidden, you hate it. You have fought it for years with gospel-faithfulness, trusting in the blood of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to cover it and conquer it.

Still it returns. You weep over it, and ask y…

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What happens to our emotions if we really believe in the sovereign wisdom and goodness of God in horrible persecution?

This question rises for me for two reasons.

One is because of God’s will for our emotions revealed in the Bible, and the other is what I see happening in the hearts of God’s people today. They are not always the same. One of my aims is to help today’s saints experience more of God’s aims for our emotions.

Here is the most recent example in my experience.

Refreshed by Horrible Persecutions?

In Revelation 6 John saw “the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God.” These are martyrs for Jesus in heaven. “They cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy…

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When the tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma on May 20, nine children died in the Plaza Towers Elementary School. I’ve been thinking about their parents, especially the mothers who bore them — and trying to imagine the void. And the more I think, the more the whole battery of recent losses crowd in on my mind — Newtown, Boston, Philadelphia, my own church. I wrote this for those mothers — perhaps all the mothers who’ve lost a child.

The Jagged Void

Tomorrow morn
      The sun will shine.
But this sharp thorn
      Will still be mine —

This jagged void
      Where you were born,
Sharply deployed
      When you were torn

From me—and yes,
      An arrow, shorn,
As if, roseless,
      …

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One of the sweet advantages of insisting that there is no such thing as same-sex “marriage” is that there is therefore also no such thing as same-sex “divorce.” In the days ahead, this will be very good news for many who repent.

In the years to come, God will be merciful on thousands of those who have been damaged by the present moral madness of our culture. He will exalt Christ in the conversion of many who have lived in same-sex relationships. More complexities than we can imagine will be presented to us in the church.

One of the more difficult scenarios will be what the church should do when, say, two women, who have lived in a so-called married state for some years, are converted to Ch…

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One of the unique things about God is that he displays his glory by helping rather than demanding help. “No eye has seen a God besides you, who works for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4). “He is not served by human hands, as though he needed anything” (Acts 17:25). “He exalts himself to show mercy” (Isaiah 30:18).

This changes the way we pray.

When we ask him for help, we know that he will give it for his name’s sake, not because we deserve it. His helping us highlights his riches. “God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). Jesus died to obtain all the help we need. So not just our praises, but also our petitions, become …

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May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy. (Colossians 1:11)

Strength is the right word. The apostle Paul prayed for the church at Colossae, that they would be “strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience” (Colossians 1:11). Patience is the evidence of an inner strength.

Impatient people are weak, and therefore dependent on external supports — like schedules that go just right and circumstances that support their fragile hearts. Their outbursts of oaths and threats and harsh criticisms of the culprits who crossed their plans do not sound weak. But that noise is all a camo…

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Significant Christian push-back was unleashed in recent months by Kathryn Joyce’s criticism of the abuses in evangelical adoption efforts: The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption.

Melanie Springer Mock documented some of that push-back and gave her appreciative take on Joyce’s book. I have been surprised at some undiscriminating criticism of evangelical adoption.

As I pondered how to respond to the criticisms of adoption, it seemed best that I try to formulate constructive commitments rather than reactive complaints. I’m not in a position to know the extent of the abuses. I’m not claiming they don’t exist. But I do know some of the key voices in the evangeli…

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At Desiring God, we are happy and unapologetic advocates of the sanctity of human life, beginning at conception. We love waving the banner for life, not just around the Roe anniversary in January, but throughout the year. Earlier this year, John Piper answered questions for a student in Asia related to abortion and the cause of life during his 33-year pastorate at Bethlehem Baptist. In an effort to keep the sanctity of human life regularly before our readers, here are the questions and John’s answers. –Editor

1. How does Bethlehem Baptist Church offer a solution to help prevent abortions or deal with women who have had abortions?

• We preach at least once a year on the nature and evil of abo…

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There are books you should read at your desk hunched over and ready to wrestle with rarified ideas. Then there are books that you should read the way you stop by a shaded stream. The trust level is high. The expectation for refreshment is keen. Jon Bloom, the President of Desiring God, has written a book like that. I encourage you to get a copy.

Here is the way Jon describes his aim: “The purpose of this little book is to imaginatively reflect on the real experiences of real people in the Bible in order to help you grasp and live what it means to ‘trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ with all our heart, and . . . not lean on our own understanding.’ Its goal is to help you believe in Jesus while living in a v…

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1. God is the greatest Reality in the universe.
   And pastors swim in that sea with ever-replenished joy.

   I am the Lᴏʀᴅ, and there is no other, besides me there is no God. (Isaiah 45:5)

   Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33–36)

2. Jesus is the greatest Savior, Master, and Friend that ever was or will be.
   And pastors contemplate and commend him every day.

   Greater love has no on…

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