You may have noticed a series of social media buttons on the side of each blog post and resource on the Desiring God website. This post is a little attempt to explain why those buttons, and the statistics they reflect, matter to us.

But I’ll begin with two reasons that do not explain why those buttons exist.

Like to Share

First, the social media numbers are not our attempt to win a popularity contest. We are not blog street performers hoping for a click-and-a-retweet dime. The same is true with Facebook. Of course, we do want you to "Like" our content, which sounds especially self-serving. “Like” is not our preferred term.

Partly this is due to the evolution of the technology we use.…

Continue Reading →

 

Galatians 6:14:

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

(Design submitted by Karalee Reinke.)

John Piper gave this plea in his 2008 message at Together for the Gospel:

My desire and prayer for you is that your life and ministry have a radical flavor. The flavor of risk, sacrifice, love, simplicity, joy, freedom, and precarious adventure.

In 1939, Howard Guinness, one of the early founders of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, wrote a little book called Sacrifice. He was trying to do then what I am trying to do now. He wrote,

Where are the young men and women of this generation who will hold their lives cheap, and be faithful even unto death, who will lose their lives for Christ’s, flinging them away for love of him? Where are those who will live dange…

Continue Reading →

He is the new president of the Acts 29 Network, he just released his first book, and today he kicks off a seven-city book tour. Matt Chandler is a busy man. Now serving in his tenth year as the lead pastor at The Village Church in Dallas, Matt recently took a moment to talk ministry with us.

Matt, thanks for your time. You recently assumed responsibilities as the new president of Acts 29. Leading a network of churches like Acts 29 is no small task. What excites you about taking on this role?

I'm excited about planting churches that love Jesus and the scriptures, churches that engage the communities around them with the gospel. I've been a part of the network for almost seven years now, …

Continue Reading →

The following excerpt is transcribed from handwritten sermon notes by John Piper from a message he preached at Perlacher Chapel in Munich, Germany on June 24, 1973. Before digging into Ephesians 1–2, he opened with these words:

The plight of us finite, sinful human beings is seen not merely in the fact that we have so many unanswered questions, but also in the fact that we often don't even know the right question to ask. The Bible is a Book full of right answers — but only to the right questions. I want to think together this morning about a question of Christian experience which, I think, is often asked in an unanswerable form, but for which there is a correct, and answerable form.

B…

Continue Reading →

John Piper, Desiring God, page 18:

The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.

(Design submitted by Jennifer Knight.)

With today's design we are launching the new Desiring God Pinterest page.

We invite you to join us for our first conference on human disability, November 8 in Minneapolis. Whether you are a pastor seeking ways to better care for the disabled, you live with disabilities yourself, or you serve as a caregiver to a disabled family member, this conference will help you better understand God’s sovereignty in human disability.

The conference — "The Works of God: God's Good Design in Disability" — will feature four speakers: Nancy Guthrie, Greg Lucas, Mark Talbot, and John Piper. Additionally, John Knight will emcee the conference and Kempton Turner will moderate a speaker panel.

"This is a very weighty, a very painful, and a very necessary topic," says Pastor John in…

Continue Reading →

Today Jerry Bridges (82) underwent a scheduled heart surgery in Colorado Springs.

He explained the procedure in an email last month. "I am scheduled to have heart surgery on April 12 to repair or replace the Mitral Valve. Ordinarily, this would be a fairly routine surgery involving a minimal invasive procedure on the right side. However, a CAT scan revealed a deformity in my breast bone that will prevent this procedure. The surgeon will have to open the breast bone to get access to the heart. Fortunately, no artery bypasses are needed."

A few days ago he followed with another email, saying, "The nurse warned me not to expect my hospital time to be a vacation. . . . This surgery and recov…

Continue Reading →

Coming out of holy week in 1981, Pastor John addressed the realities of the Monday blues that so often follow on the heels of the Easter Sunday joys. He said this in his sermon, "The Sifting of Simon Peter” (Luke 22:31–34):

The word of encouragement and consolation and hope that I want to offer you today from God’s Word is that, if you love God and are called according to his purpose, if you are despairing of your own resources and looking to Christ for hope, then to you belongs a most wonderful promise: Jesus prays for you, and he will never let Satan destroy your faith and bring you to ruin.

Do you know why we need a message of hope and encouragement the Sunday after Easter? It’s be…

Continue Reading →

The whole point of Easter is that we get … blank.

How would you finish the sentence?

... we get justification.

… we get new life in Christ.

… we get the promise of imperishable physical bodies.

… we get the promise of eternal joy.

For all the right answers we could give, there’s one even more fundamental purpose behind the holy week events, writes John Piper in his book God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God's Love as the Gift of Himself [(Crossway, 2005), 37, 147]:

Until the gospel events of Good Friday and Easter and the gospel promises of justification and eternal life lead you to behold and embrace God himself as your highest joy, you have not embraced the gospel of God. …

Continue Reading →