The Isaac Factor …
Education for Exultation: Beyond the Possible
Why does God make us depend on him for what is humanly impossible?
Why does God make us depend on him for what is humanly impossible?
What are the essential distinctions between true Christians and non-Christians?
The law teaches two things about obtaining salvation.
Jesus Christ is building his church around the world with missionaries.
He is risen! Trust him today. By his mercy he can forgive your sins. And by his sovereignty he can turn all things for your good.
Our true individuality is found only in relationship to the body of Christ.
If we give ourselves daily to the word of God, our hope and joy will be made unshakably strong—even in suffering.
Believing that God is furious against sin produces a good fear that transforms everything in life.
Does God ever intend for his justice—his right to punish wrong—to be shared with men?
Faith is what really matters in Christian behavior, not just whether you accomplish certain things or abstain from others.
The kingdom produces more than Christian liberty. It governs how you use your liberty too.
Don't let your sinfulness hinder your prayers. Run into the arms of God and fill his ear with arguments that aim for His honor.
Every responsible person, on the basis of their actions and attitudes, will meet the final judgment of God.
Who you invite to share in your abundance shows where your treasure is.
It is important to try to persuade people, like Luke in his Gospel, of the truth of Christianity.
If we are unloving and unrepentant then we should not think that God is likely to answer our prayers.
I feel tremendously challenged by the example of Jesus to strive for increased wisdom and understanding of Scripture.
The church is the cosmic showcase of God's mercy, but he gets cosmic reproach when we fail to receive his mercy with joy.
There are at least seven qualifications if a group wants to be a church in the NT sense.
Do not fear the work God calls you to. He loves you deeply, knows you fully, and will turn all for your good.
Never underestimate the power of truth spoken in a single sentence.
The law is a description of the obedience of faith; it is not a job description for how to earn the wages of God's blessings.
Do not grumble; it is God's grace that sends you into the wilderness. He is inoculating you against the infections of wealth.
We don't have a deep sense of peace and fulfillment when we have successfully deluded everybody about who we really are or what we really feel or think. There is a deep (and I believe God-given) longing to be authentic, not to be hypocrites.
The best fertilizer for our hope and godliness is the knowledge of our future in God's grace.
When we make disciples, we bid people to come and die to their old, destructive ways and to live for Jesus, who loved them and gave himself for them.
The central concern of your life is to ensure that you are a child of Abraham.
A Christian is not a person who experiences no bad desires. A Christian is a person who is at war with those desires by the power of the Spirit.
What you do with it—or desire to do with it—can make or break your happiness forever.
Revival happens when we see God majestic in holiness, and when we see ourselves disobedient dust.
Strategies and actions to seek and save the lost must have high priority in the life of our church.
Sanctification is obeying the Commander-in-Chief. Sanctification is a wartime word.
When I choose God, it is because he has first chosen me. My will is not sovereign and self-determining. God's is.
The reason there is a Christmas is because God aims to destroy something.
Job's worship was remarkable because it came in the midst of great suffering.
Preserve your freedom in Christ! Can you say with Paul, "I will not be enslaved by anything!"?
We need a Savior because we are spiritually dead and helpless without him, no matter how good we look on the outside.
Biblical hope not only desires something good for the future; it expects it to happen.
Heavenly-mindedness is what frees our hands to do the works of love.
You can live to HAVE, either legally or illegally. Or you can become a Christian and live to give.
God is never constrained to do a thing that he despises. He does whatever he wants.
The mark of living worthily of the gospel is a unified, fearless striving for the faith of the gospel.
We should aim at full doctrinal unity and full heart unity.
Giving the gospel away is one of the best ways of experiencing its power in your own life.
The battle against misplaced shame is the battle against unbelief in the promises of God.
Jesus has done more than anyone to bring purity and harmony between men and women.
The answer to the most important questions in life is Jesus Christ, God's inexpressible gift to you.
James 5 is a rebuke to pastors that never have the faith to heal and churches that don't pray in the spirit of Elijah.
May God unite us in one vision of what he is doing so that we might not only endure but delight in the design of these days.
God wants us to pray for signs and wonders today.
Jesus does not like pessimistic views of life or history. He has surprises in store that you have never dreamed.
The ultimate goal of God in election and predestination is that God might be praised for his glory.
No matter what the issue is, it exists for Christ, or for nothing. Because CHRIST IS ALL.
The great need of the hour is to know God more deeply and personally and more biblically.
How you handle your possessions shows where your heart is.
God blesses us so that the nations will be blessed.
How do we get what we need to forgive those who sin against us?
Jesus shines bright when our hope is meek, fearless, well-defended, and zealous for good deeds.
Fasting is God's testing ground—and healing ground.
Jesus is calling us not just to do good things for our enemy; he is also calling us to WANT their best.
All things are by his grace because all things are for his glory. The all-sufficient, inexhaustible Giver gets the glory.
The sovereignty of God over the wills of men doesn't make evangelism unnecessary; it makes it hopeful.
The second Adam, Jesus Christ, defeated death and restored the hope of Psalm 8 for all who are in him.
Do you have the disease of "dullness of hearing," and if so, how can you get well?
Christians have a hope that frees them to move toward need, not comfort.
John Piper offers seven points of counsel to those with homosexual desires, and five to their parents.
Even though language can sometimes confuse us--like when the same word carries multiple meanings--the Bible is not contradictory.
In this world you will have trouble, but in Christ it will only increase your joy and hope.
If your driving motive in life is to be liked and loved you will find it almost impossible to be a Christian.
John Piper thanks God for the lives of two saints and asks how it is that their deaths are "precious in the sight of the Lord."
One of the reasons we don't know God deeply is that we don't venture much on his pledge to carry things for us.
Let's not doubt Jesus' love—let's watch and learn what love really is.
The doctrine of justification is immeasurably precious to every area of life.
God wants us to use means to get his work done, but he wants us to trust in him, not in these means.
We must respond to suffering with both compassion and confidence in God.
To affirm truth with extra-biblical language is more biblical than using biblical language to defend falsehood.
The Bible often requires us to read thoroughly, not skim lightly. How should this affect the way we train our minds?
A poetic reflection on the glories of God in the doctrine of predestination.
(This audio comes from December 18, 2005)
Historically, there are only five points of Calvinism, so what are the extra two?