Monday mornings are notoriously difficult, and Charles Spurgeon was aware of the challenges his congregation faced to begin the week motivated to work diligently for God’s glory. In one of his sermons he reminded his congregation that “the sacred has absorbed the secular.” God’s purposes for our lives brings new vision to all of our vocations and weekly tasks. For God’s children all of life is ministry. Here's how Spurgeon put it in his aptly titled sermon “All For Jesus”:

To a man who lives unto God nothing is secular, everything is sacred. He puts on his workday garment and it is a vestment to him. He sits down to his meal and it is a sacrament. He goes forth to his labor, and therein…

Continue Reading →

Ever tire of scrolling through long lists of sermon titles when picking a podcast? Are you the kind who would be relieved to have someone help you with the picking?

Our friends at Ligonier want to help. They are providing a new web app called RefNet: 24-Hour Christian Internet Radio. Available free for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, RefNet includes broadcasts from R.C. Sproul, Alistair Begg, Al Mohler, and John Piper.

Just tap the RefNet icon, and listen in, any time of day or night. And the picking's been done for you.

If you don't have a mobile device, you can stream it through your computer on the RefNet website.

Check out the video:

Today many of us will gather in local churches to hear the preaching of God’s word from faithful ministers. So what is the proper spiritual posture we should take for listening to the sermon? In our recently released ebook, Take Care How You Listen, John Piper offers us help in preparing our hearts on Sundays. At one point Pastor John writes this:

Come in a spirit of meek teachability. Not gullibility. You have your Bible and you have your head. But James says, “In meekness receive the implanted word” (1:21). If we come with a chip on our shoulder that there is nothing we can learn or no benefit we can get, we will prove ourselves infallible on both counts. But if we humble ourselves be…

Continue Reading →

It's such a long word — sanctification. And it has such a churchy ring to it. No one uses this language outside the church.

So why not adopt a simpler term from the secular world and freight it afresh with Christian content?

While expositing Romans 6:23, John Piper went off script (it's in the audio, but not the manuscript) to tackle this question and also provide a short but substantive definition of what Christian theology means by the term "sanctification."

Now I know sanctification is a church word. I don't think I've ever seen the word sanctification in the Minneapolis StarTribune. It's a church word. 

So someone might say, "Why don't you choose a non-church word?" There a…

Continue Reading →

On Saturday mornings we usually feature artwork from a talented designer. This time, we'd like to invite you to design a quote image in light of our forthcoming conference on sanctification. In this contest, three winners will walk away with a $75 Amazon gift certificate. Here are the details.

The designs will feature this sentence from John Piper (please include his name somewhere in the design):

“When it comes to killing my sin, I don’t wait for the miracle, I act the miracle.” –John Piper

Please put the emphasis on the last four words of the quote: ". . . I act the miracle."

The design format is up to you. You can sketch this quote with a pen and scan it or photograph it. Y…

Continue Reading →

Olympic glory is for the young. Gymnast Gabby Douglas is just 16 years old, swimmer Katie Ledecky is only 15, and Michael Phelps, age 27, says he's old enough to make these Olympic Games his last.

But the Christian "race" is for young and old. The fight of faith is for the healthiest and sickliest, for the seemingly strong and the weak.

So how is it that an aging Christian — barely able to walk, much less compete in Olympic track and field — can have the wherewithal to run?

John Piper tackles the question:

The answer is that we all must run, whether old or young and whether sick or healthy. And this is possible for the sick and senile because the race is a race against unbelief not a…

Continue Reading →

Gay rights activists across the country plan to descend upon Chick-fil-A this evening in response to Wednesday’s "Appreciation Day." Here will be a real-life test of tolerance for many professing Christians.

Now, as political and newsy as it may seem, the main thing to understand about tolerance is this: It is profoundly theological. Yes, tolerance is defensible on the basis of mere reason, and no, you don't have to be a Christian to practice it — or even a theist. But the firmest ground for why we would bother being tolerant goes back to God. We look to the one who has revealed himself ultimately in Jesus Christ and authoritatively in the Bible.

God is the most tolerant being ever. Not …

Continue Reading →

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:13).

Your rest is coming. Sooner than you know you will receive your “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance” (1 Peter 1:4). And when it comes you will understand why your faith was more precious than gold (1 Peter 1:7). This is where Peter wants your hope to fully rest.

But today is a time for war, not peace. It’s a time for faith, not sight. It’s a time of grievous trials that test the genuineness of your faith (1 Peter 1:6–7). So it’s a time to prepare for the action of battle, to keep sober.

Your ba…

Continue Reading →

Views that advocate same-sex marriage are free to exist, but they are wrong.

Now, stop. Read the above sentence again. Are you okay with it?

Chances are how you feel about that statement indicates your understanding (or misunderstanding) of tolerance. D. A. Carson, in his book, The Intolerance of Tolerance, explains that Western culture isn't exactly firing on all cylinders when it comes to knowing what tolerance is. He distinguishes two different concepts of this word: old tolerance and new tolerance.

Old tolerance — that is, before the onslaught of postmodernism — defines the concept as to "accept the existence of different views." New tolerance, however, defines tolerance as to …

Continue Reading →

In today's episode of Behind the Blog we talk olympics, spanking, and the Book of Psalms, including some upcoming posts and events in Minneapolis.

You can also listen here.

Mentioned in this episode:

• How to Watch the Olympic Games
• Does God Love Us By Sending Us Pain?
• 20 Quotes From The Hole In Our Holiness
• Why You Don't Have to Fear Terror
• Jesus and the Wild Animals
• Piper and Keller Wrestle with Sanctification
• More on Sanctification from Piper and Keller
• Free Seminar on August 24–25 in Minneapolis
• The Works of God: God's Good Design in Disability

---

Recent episodes:

• Behind the Blog: No Place for Middle Earth
• …

Continue Reading →