Last week I had the chance to sit down with some of the team at Desiring God to talk about how Christians should interact with sports. During the conversation we briefly touched on how easily sports can become an idol, whether it’s as an athlete or fan or a parent of an athlete. Overall, though, we explored how Christians can be involved in sports and the goodness of sports in culture as an expression of God’s creativity and the gifts he’s given people.

One Facebook commenter responded to the podcast with a perspective that many people share — sports seems “like a whole other religion.” He went on to describe the amount of excitement and money people pour into sports and how that ought to b…

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He was the kind of adolescent who would keep secret reading material stashed under his mattress. Long after he was supposed to be fast asleep, the teenage Joel Beeke would lay in bed with the light still on, pouring over the pages. He had stumbled across his father’s forbidden collection, and long before most youths are exposed to the adult world, Beeke was getting acclimated.

By Beeke’s own admission, he was raised in a hyper-Calvinist home, and his wandering heart found a haven for indulgence. It was the Puritans.

These old English pastors and theologians, from the second half of the 16th century and the entirety of the 17th century, informed his mind, wooed his heart, and began guiding …

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Picture your bathroom. Now picture your toilet. Now, you know that space behind the toilet, the disgusting place where nobody goes? The place that, if you should happen to drop your toothbrush, it means that you’ll just have to buy a new one? Okay, that place is like your heart. Or at least the sinful parts of your heart. All kinds of junk lives back there: lying, back-biting, lust, pride, bitterness, anxiety, envy.

Sanctification is our effort by God’s grace to clean behind the toilet, to remove the muck and the mire that still inhabit the dark recesses of our hearts. But sanctification can go wrong in all kinds of ways. Legalism is attempting to clean behind the toilet without any disinfe…

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We’ve taken Solid Joys to a new level.

As of today, we are happy to announce that our daily devotional app is no longer restricted to Apple and Android mobile devices, but is now a fully functional website. We’re hoping many will find this to be a tremendous blessing.

The new Solid Joys site is simple, and easy to use, and features 365 of the best devotional excerpts from John Piper's online writings and from his “trilogy” of books with Multnomah (Desiring God, The Pleasures of God, and Future Grace). The devotional of the day automatically comes up when you visit the site at http://solidjoys.desiringGod.org, and you can click easily to the preceeding or following day’s reading.

We have a…

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Our joy in God is bound up with our trust in God. The two cannot be separated — not ever. Trust is the backbone of joy. And joy is the outflow of trust in one who is fully Trustworthy.

We see this connection made throughout the Bible.

The Psalmist unites trust and joy:

But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy. (Psalm 5:11a)

The Lᴏʀᴅ is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him. (Psalm 28:7)

For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. (Psalm 33:21)

And the Apostle Paul unites trust and joy:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and pea…

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“Mom, you are making me feel dumb” my son said quietly.

I drew in a quick breath and exhaled. My heart was pierced by his words. I looked over at my son. He stood there staring at me, the hurt stretched across his young face. I had just repeated an instruction to him for the third time because the first two times he didn’t seem to understand. Yet I didn’t simply restate the instruction, my tone was condescending and belittling.

“I’m sorry I spoke to you that way. You are not dumb. Will you forgive me?” I responded, hugging him close.

My son is eight and our conversation was deeply convicting. It was the first time he had ever voiced to me how my speech makes him feel. I wondered how often…

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Earlier this year, a grieving mother, who recently had given birth to a stillborn son, wrote to me asking for counsel and comfort. The team at Desiring God thought this letter might be helpful to some others, whether other mothers who have lost infants, parents who have lost young children, or perhaps even more broadly.

Dear _____,

This loss and sorrow is all so fresh. I hesitate to tread into the tender place and speak. But since you ask, I pray that God would help me say something helpful.

First, please know that I know I don’t know what it is like to give birth to a lifeless body. Only a small, sad band of mothers know that. I say “lifeless body” because, as you made clear, your son is…

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Five new episodes of the Ask Pastor John podcast were released this week. Here's a list of brief excerpts from each episode (click on the titles to listen).

How Far Is Too Far Before Marriage? (Episode 73):

I would say to the women, don’t entice a man to touch you thinking that this is the way to keep a man. He is not worth keeping if that is the way he is kept. And feel free to say to any man, “No, please don’t take us there.” And you can discern what kind of a man you are dealing with by how sensitive he is to that dimension of purity.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God” [Matthew 5:8]. That is what we want. We want to see God. . . . If a single person is listening …

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People continue to ask me how it feels. “You were a pastor non-stop for 33 years. Now you’re not. How does it feel?”

I have been tongue-tied too many times. So I have tried to come up with the shortest possible sound-bite answer. And the second shortest. The shortest is “Leap and Weep.” The second shortest is “Burden Lifted, Blessings Lost.” They refer to the same paradox. When a burden is lifted, you leap. When blessings are lost, you weep.

Paul said to the elders of Ephesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). I have lost a lot of steady-state giving. Weekly preaching is weekly giving. Weekly staff-meetings are weekly giving. Regular elder meetings are regular giv…

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What happened in Boston on Monday was demonic. The thief (John 10:10) killed three precious lives, wreaked physical destruction on scores more and spiritual destruction on thousands. And he stole not only the joy of the race for millions, but far worse he stole trust. This will have widespread social and cultural repercussions.

This Boston massacre makes visible a spiritual reality. When the bombs exploded, the Boston Marathon stopped and everyone fled for cover. Likewise, when terror grips the human heart, we abandon the faith race. We just want to hide. Nothing stops the legs of faith like fear.

That’s why the devil seeks to terrorize you. He wants you to abort the race. Short of that, h…

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