Risk is right, but it's also hard — or at least it is when it involves learning a second language.

Many Christians who have answered a compelling call to the nations soon find themselves in a perpetual plod of learning how to talk all over again. It is tiresome, even discouraging. And John Piper knows how it feels.

Studying at the University of Munich in the 70's, Piper had to learn German from scratch. In this three-minute video, he reflects on that season and offers a word of encouragement to press on and look to God:

The goal of missions is the worldwide worship of Jesus Christ. And that's what our new book, Finish the Mission, is all about.

Approaching the topic in a refreshing way, this book, edited by John Piper and David Mathis, encourages readers to take up the mantle of the Great Commission and its Spirit-powered completion.

Right now Westminster Bookstore is offering Finish the Mission for $8.50 (50% off the regular price). But this deal is only available for one week. So if you're interested, click over and get it today.

May the Lord use this book to breathe fresh missionary fire into a new generation, as together we seek to reach the unreached and engage the unengaged for the glory o…

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This Friday and Saturday, November 2–3, John Piper will be leading a seminar on the theme of A Hunger for God. The seminar, totaling five hours of teaching, is completely free. Online registration is closed, but there is still space available on a first-come, first-serve basis if you'd like to register onsite.

But if you can't make it in person, no worries. The entire event will be live-streamed at www.desiringGod.org/live.

• Friday night: 8:00pm–10:00pm (EDT)
• Saturday morning: 10:00am–1:00pm (EDT)

Whether on the ground in Minneapolis or over the web, we'd love for you to join us this weekend!

Here's Pastor John's invitation:

More information regarding the schedule and recommended hotels.

"Never has God's voice been so easily accessible," writes John Piper, urging Christians to prefer Bible apps over the abounding options out there.

Resolve that today you will press the Bible app three times during the day. No five times. Ten times! Maybe you will lose control and become addicted to Bible! Again and again get a two-minute dose of life-giving Food. Man shall not live by Facebook alone.

A true leader in the market, YouVersion is ranked as the first Bible app in iTunes with over 50 million downloads and 144 languages. They have a five-star rating based on over half a million reviews worldwide. And best of all, it's completely free (see on iTunes or Google Play).

One neat…

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"Missions exists because worship doesn't." "Prayer is a war-time walkie-talkie, not a domestic intercom." "Suffering is not just the price many must pay, it is God's strategy for victory."

These are not merely pithy statements from John Piper. They are explosive truths from the Bible that have shaped a generation of missionaries. For the last 30 years, during Bethlehem's annual focus on global outreach, Pastor John has preached a sermon on taking the gospel to the unreached peoples of the world.

Connected to a missions legacy dating back to the 1800s, Piper passes on the mantle to Jason Meyer in his most recent sermon. He highlights ten biblical convictions that drive Bethlehem's commi…

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We are beggars. This is true.

Those were the final words Martin Luther scribbled on a piece of paper just before he died on February 18, 1546. His last words echoed the life-changing truths he'd unearthed in the Scriptures — first life-changing, then civilization-altering.

Beggars, indeed, because God justly demands a righteousness sinful humans cannot produce. A righteousness, in fact, that if we could produce would nullify the grace of God and make Jesus's death be for no purpose (Galatians 2:23). Embodying deep devotion to the Scriptures, Luther came to understand that we need an alien righteousness for divine acceptance — a righteousness given to us by another.

And this life-chang…

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Joy changes everything, including our battle against evil.

John Piper explains in this two-minute video:

Christian Hedonism changes our combat with evil. Jeremiah 2:13 — the Christian Hedonist definition of evil — "for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water."

What's evil? The suicidal preference of empty wells over the river of delights flowing from heaven. That's evil!

So the battle against evil is not to constantly say "No, no, no. Bad, bad, bad." There's no power in that. The power of the flesh is coming at you, the power of the devil is coming at you, a…

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"I am concerned," writes David Platt, "about a general vagueness that has existed in contemporary Christianity regarding the next step..."

We have seen that God blesses us so that his glory might be made known in all nations. But an all-important question remains. How do we make God's glory known in all nations? If God has given us his grace so that we might take his gospel to the ends of the earth, then how do we do that? (Radical, 87)

Platt goes on to cast a vision for disciplemaking in the local church — a vision that is further developed by David Mathis in the appendix of Finish the Mission(Crossway, 2012). Mathis calls disciplemaking "blue-collar Christianity."

[It's the] …

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John Piper:

When you take your stand on the finished work of God in Christ, and begin to drink at the River of Life and eat the Bread of Heaven, and know that you have found the end of all your longings, you only get hungrier for God. The more satisfaction you experience from God, while still in this world, the greater your desire for the next. For, as C. S. Lewis said, "Our best havings are wantings."

The more deeply you walk with Christ, the hungrier you get for Christ . . . the more homesick you get for heaven . . . the more you want "all the fullness of God" . . . the more you want to be done with sin . . . the more you want the Bridegroom to come again . . . the more you want the Chur…

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John Knight says that churches need pastors who love the word of God. That's one central aim of the upcoming disability conference November 8.

In this short video, John challenges pastors to set forth a faithful vision of God from Bible — a God who is more relentless than disability and who fulfills his good design.

Learn more about the conference and register at the event page.