John Piper Quotes

We would do our theology better if more was at stake in what we said.

~ John Piper

The horror of Hell is an echo of the infinite worth of God's glory.

~ John Piper

God is willing and able to turn his judgements into joys . . . Don't ever think that the sin of your past means there is no hope for your future.

~ John Piper

Don't make peace with the sin in your life.

~ John Piper

Desire for and delight in God's Word are inseparable.

~ John Piper

Salvation is the creation of new desires, not just new goodies.

~ John Piper

Tasks don't have to be high-impact to be worthy of high effort. Most things we do in any given day are relatively low impact. The cumulative impact of thousands of low-impact test is huge. These tasks can be transposed into worship.

~ John Piper

If we are cut loose from the anchor of God's Word, we will not be free. We will be slaves of personal passions and popular trends.

~ John Piper

All heroes are shadows of Christ

~ John Piper

God without Christ is no God.

~ John Piper

Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain. What was once foolishness to us—a crucified God—must become our wisdom and our power and our only boast in this world.

~ John Piper

If truth does not lead to falling in love, it fails.

~ John Piper

The war is being fought along the line between sin and righteousness in every family. It is being fought along the line between truth and falsehood in every school... Between justice and injustice in every legislature... Between integrity and corruption in every office... Between love and hate in every ethnic group... Between pride and humility in every sport... Between the beautiful and the ugly in every art... Between right doctrine and wrong doctrine in every church... Between sloth and diligence between coffee breaks. It is not a waste to fight the battle for truth and faith and love on any of these fronts.

~ John Piper

An eye for beauty instead of bleakness might have lightened some of his load.

~ John Piper

Here’s an Advent illustration for kids — and those of us who used to be kids and remember what it was like. Suppose you and your mom get separated in the grocery store, and you start to get scared and panic and don’t know which way to go, and you run to the end of an aisle, and just before you start to cry, you see a shadow on the floor at the end of the aisle that looks just like your mom. It makes you really happy and you feel hope. But which is better? The happiness of seeing the shadow, or having your mom step around the corner and it’s really her?That’s the way it is when Jesus comes to be our High Priest. That’s what Christmas is. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing.

~ John Piper

Christmas is an indictment before it becomes a delight. It will not have its intended effect until we feel desperately the need for a Savior.

~ John Piper

Brand-new truths are probably not Truths.

~ John Piper

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a love for the lost? This is a term we use as part of our Christian jargon. Many believers search their hearts in condemnation, looking for the arrival of some feeling of benevolence that will propel them into bold evangelism. It will never happen. It is impossible to love “the lost”. You can’t feel deeply for an abstraction or a concept. You would find it impossible to love deeply an unfamiliar individual portrayed in a photograph, let alone a nation or a race or something as vague as “all lost people”.Don’t wait for a feeling or love in order to share Christ with a stranger. You already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created by Him, but separated from Him, so take those first steps in evangelism because you love God. It is not primarily out of compassion for humanity that we share our faith or pray for the lost; it is first of all, love for God.

~ John Piper

God is calling us to live for the sake of Christ and to do that through suffering. Christ chose suffering; it didn’t just happen to Him. He chose it as the way to create and perfect the church. Now He calls us to choose suffering. That is, He calls us to take up our cross and follow Him on the Calvary road and deny ourselves and make sacrifices for the sake of ministering to the church and presenting His sufferings to the world.

~ John Piper

If death is no longer a fear, we're really free. Free to take any risk under the sun for Christ and for love.

~ John Piper

We will wait. We will wait till all is made righteous (glorious) according to the word of God.

~ John Piper

The gospel of the glory of Christ spreads better and flourishes more because of 6,500 languages, not in spite of them.

~ John Piper

Go, send, or disobey.

~ John Piper

So saving grace, converting grace, for Augustine, is God's giving us a sovereign joy in God that triumphs over all other joys and therefore sways the will. The will is free to move toward whatever it delights in most fully, but it is not within the power of our will to determine what that sovereign joy will be.

~ John Piper

You can't ever be your heroes, but you can love their gifts.

~ John Piper

Darkness comes. In the middle of it, the future looks blank. The temptation to quit is huge. Don't. You are in good company... You will argue with yourself that there is no way forward. But with God, nothing is impossible. He has more ropes and ladders and tunnels out of pits than you can conceive. Wait. Pray without ceasing. Hope.

~ John Piper

Whenever the strength of God is not recognized as the source of our strength, we are breaking the First Commandment: Do not have any gods before me.

~ John Piper

The best news of the Christian gospel is that the supremely glorious Creator of the universe has acted in Jesus Christ's death and resurrection to remove every obstacle between us and himself so that we may find everlasting joy in seeing and savoring his infinite beauty.

~ John Piper

The most dangerous thing in the world is the sin of self-reliance and the stupor of worldliness.

~ John Piper

We look at life from the back side of the tapestry. And most of the time, what we see is loose threads, tangled knots and the like. But occasionally, God's light shines through the tapestry, and we get a glimpse of the larger design with God weaving together the darks and lights of existence.

~ John Piper

Not all single women want to be married. Not all boys like football. Not all homemakers like to cook. Not all messy people are lazy. And not all the obese are gluttons. There are glands and diabetes and a dozen conditions you never heard of that may account for things. Put your sermon through the counter-stereotype sieve.

~ John Piper

The Gospel is not a theory the Gospel is not a philosophy or an idea the Gospel is not a way of thinking or feeling. The Gospel is an event in history.

~ John Piper

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

~ John Piper

The essence of faith is being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus.

~ John Piper

God revealed himself through the Law, which pointed to Christ as its end and goal, commanded the obedience that comes from faith, increased transgressions, and shut the mouths of all humans because no one has performed the righteousness of the Law so as not to need a substitute.

~ John Piper

When I believe in Jesus, I am united to Christ. Therefore, what he did and achieved becomes mine by this union through faith alone. His righteous life is imputed to me. What Christ achieved is counted as mine.

~ John Piper

We are all responsible to Jesus first, and then, under him, to various other persons and offices. Discerning the path of love and obedience when two or more of these submissive relationships collide is a call to humble, Bible-saturated, spiritual wisdom.

~ John Piper