John Piper (theologian) Quotes

85 Sourced Quotes

We need God in ways we do not know. Don't limit your experience of God to what you can think to ask. Ask for the unknown joy.

John Piper
Our obedience is God's pleasure when it proves that God is our treasure. This is good news, because it means very simply that the command to obey is the command to be happy in God. The commandments of God are only as hard to obey as the promises of God are hard to believe. The Word of God is only as hard to obey as the beauty of God is hard to cherish.

John Piper
God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose.

John Piper
Do you feel loved by God because you believe he makes much of you, or because you believe he frees you and empowers you to enjoy making much of him?

John Piper
Bad theology will eventually hurt people and dishonor God in proportion to its badness.

John Piper
Even on days when every cinder in our soul feels cold, if we crawl to the Word of God and cry out for ears to hear, the cold ashes will be lifted and the tiny spark of life will be fanned. For 'the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.'

John Piper
One of the most important discoveries I have ever made is this truth: God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in him. This is the motor that drives my ministry as a pastor. It affects everything I do.

John Piper
It is not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for more comforts in the den.

John Piper
The gospel is the good news that the everlasting and ever-increasing joy of the never-boring, ever-satisfying Christ is ours freely and eternally by faith in the sin-forgiving death and hope-giving resurrection of Jesus Christ.

John Piper
Our concern with truth is simply an echo of our concern with God.

John Piper
The inner essence of worship is cherishing Christ as gain - indeed as more gain than all that life can offer - family, career, retirement, fame, food, friends. The essence of worship is experiencing Christ as gain. Or to use words that we love to use around here: it is savoring Christ, treasuring Christ, being satisfied with Christ.

John Piper
Love is doing what will enthrall the beloved with the greatest and longest joy. What will enthrall the beloved this way is the glory of God. Love means doing all we can, at whatever cost to ourselves, to help people be enthralled with the glory of God. When they are, they are satisfied and God is glorified. Therefore loving people and glorifying God are one.

John Piper
There will be no passion to draw others into our worship where there is no passion for worship.

John Piper
God's greatest interest is to glorify the wealth of His grace by making sinners happy in Him.

John Piper
God is love precisely because He relentlessly pursues the praises of His name in the hearts of His people.

John Piper
All of history is moving toward one great goal, the white-hot worship of God and His Son among all the peoples of the earth. Missions is not that goal. It is the means. And for that reason it is the second greatest human activity in the world.

John Piper
It horribly skews the meaning of the cross when contemporary prophets of self-esteem say that the cross is a witness to my infinite worth. The biblical perspective is that the cross in a witness to the infinite worth of God's glory, and a witness to the immensity of the sin of my pride.

John Piper
Without extended, concentrated prayer, the ministry of the Word withers. And when the ministry of the Word declines, faith (Rom. 10:17; Gal. 3:2, 5) and holiness (John 17:17) decline. Activity may continue, but life and power and fruitfulness fade away. Therefore, whatever opposes prayer opposes the whole work of ministry.

John Piper
The pursuit of joy in God is not optional.
It is not an 'extra' that a person might grow into after he comes to
faith. Until your heart has hit upon this pursuit your 'faith' cannot
please God. It is not savng faith. Saving faith is the heartfelt
conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that He is
desirable.

John Piper
I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God.

John Piper
If the pursuit of God's glory is not ordered above the pursuit of man's good in the affections of the heart and the priorities of the Church, man will not be well served, and God will not be duly honored. I am not pleading for a diminishing of missions but for a magnifying of God. When the flame of worship burns with the heat of God's true worth, the light of missions will shine to the darkest peoples on earth. And I long for that day to come!

John Piper
If you want to be a conduit for God's grace, you don't have to be lined with gold. Copper will do.

John Piper
Humble us, O God, under your mighty hand, and let us rise, not as professionals, but as witnesses and partakers of the sufferings of Christ.

John Piper
Why Christians do what they do is just as important as what they do. Bad motives ruin good acts.

John Piper
The importance of prayer rises in proportion to the importance of the things we should give up in order to pray

John Piper