John Piper: Favorite Quotes

"He will go in, he will not stay on the outside. He will not have externalism. He will push through your fakery, your posing, your hypocracy, he will push in until he touches every single raw secret nerve of your life, he knows you! - John Piper


"When I am revealed and my heart is laid bare...my heart is being exposed to myself and to God so that I might know him better....even self knowledge is about God knowledge, even the exposure of ourselves is about the exposure of Christ to ourselves because if we don't know the depth of our own hardness we won't know how we are excluding him from there" - John Piper


"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him"— John Piper


"If you don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great."— John Piper (A Hunger for God)


"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


"Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It's a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don't want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel."— John Piper (God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God's Love as the Gift of Himself)


"It is better to lose your life than to waste it."— John Piper


"Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't."— John Piper


"The strength of patience hangs on our capacity to believe that God is up to something good for us in all our delays and detours."— John Piper (Battling Unbelief: Defeating Sin with Superior Pleasure)


"The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite forheaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is notthe X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality wedrink in every night."— John Piper (A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer)


"Suffering in the path of Christian obedience, with joy - because the steadfast love of the Lord is better than life (Psalm 63:3) - is the clearest display of the worth of God in our lives. Therefore, faith-filled suffering is essential in this world for the most intense, authentic worship. When we are most satisfied with God in suffering, he will be most glorified in us in worship. Our problem is not styles of music. Our problem is styles of life. When we embrace more affliction for the worth of Christ, there will be more fruit in the worship of Christ.— John Piper (Tested by Fire


"The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all thefriends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, andall the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beautiesyou ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and nohuman conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied withheaven, if Christ were not there? "— John Piper (God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God's Love as the Gift of Himself


"The key to Christian living is a thirst and hunger for God. And one of the main reasons people do not understand or experience the sovereignty of grace and the way it works through the awakening of sovereign joy is that their hunger and thirst for God is so small."— John Piper


"It is about the greatness of God, not the significance of man. God made man small and the universe big to say something about himself."— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life)


"The answer, The answer, my friend, is not yours to invent or create. It will be decided for you. It is outside you. It is real and objective and firm. One day you will hear it. You don't create it. You don't define it. It comes to you, and sooner or later you conform to it—or bow to it."— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life)


"Life is not a straight line leading from one blessing to the next and then finally to heaven. Life is a winding and troubled road. Switchback after switchback. And the point of biblical stories like Joseph and Job and Esther and Ruth is to help us feel in our bones (not just know in our heads) that God is for us in all these strange turns. God is not just showing up after the trouble and cleaning it up. He is plotting the course and managing the troubles with far-reaching purposes for our good and for the glory of Jesus Christ."— John Piper (A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God)


He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him."— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life)


"Desire that your life count for something great! Long for your life to have eternal significance. Want this! Don't coast through life without a passion."— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life)


"Woe to us if we get our satisfaction from the food in the kitchen and the TV in the den and the sex in the bedroom with an occasional tribute to the cement blocks in the basement! God wills to be displayed and known and loved and cherished and worshiped."— John Piper


"We are more than a collection of appetites - we are of God."— John Piper (A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God


"There is a warning. The path of God-exalting joy will cost you your life. Jesus said, "Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it." In other words, it is better to lose your life than to waste it. If you live gladly to make others glad inGod, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full. This is not a book about how to avoid a wounded life, but how to avoid a wasted life. Some of you will die in the service of Christ. That will not be a tragedy. Treasuring life above Christ is a tragedy."— John Piper


"My joy grows with every soul that seeks the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Remember, you have one life. That's all. You were made forGod. Don't waste it."— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life)


"Don't be surprised. There is nothing new under the sun. Only endless repackagings"— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life


"We weren't meant to be somebody--we were meant to know Somebody"— John Piper


"Do you love the cross because it makes much of you? Or do you love it because it enables you to enjoy and eternity of making much of God?"— John Piper



"You get one pass at life. That's all. Only one. And the lasting measure of that life is Jesus Christ."— John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life)