A Godward Life: Savoring the Supremacy of God in All of Life

by John Piper

A Godward Life is the first of three devotional volumes by John Piper, each feature 120 vignettes that focus on the radical difference it makes when we choose to live with God at the center of all that we do. Scripture-soaked and touching on the issues which most affect our lives today, A Godward Life is a passionate, moving, and articulate call for all believers to live their lives in conscious and glad submission to the sovereignty and glory of God.

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Paperback, 336 pages

Published October 5th 2001 by Multnomah Books (first published August 1st 1992)

tags: theology, spirituality, audiobook, faith, christianity, christian non fiction, religion, nonfiction, christian living, christian

Book Quotes

“Books don't change people; paragraphs do, Sometimes even sentences.”

― John Piper

topics: Books, John Piper, Reading Books

“The Roman Emperor Julian, writing in the fourth century, regretted the progress of Christianity because it pulled people away from the Roman gods. He said, 'Atheism [I.e. the Christian faith!] has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers, and through their care for the burial of the dead. It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar, and that the godless Galileans care not only for their own poor but for ours as well; while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them.”

― John Piper

“Be glad in the Lord and receive willingly from His Hand all that he designs for my holiness - both painful and pleasant.”

― John Piper

“This is the path toward change. We are called to take it and not wait passively while our minds are drawn away with all kinds of passions that wage war against our souls (1 Peter 2:11). It is when we focus our minds on the glory of Christ that we are transformed from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18). Take this moment to resolve that you will be intentional about what your mind considers. It will dwell on something, and what it dwells on, it becomes like.”

― John Piper

“will think of the Lord in what we are doing at work. We will ask, Why would the Lord like this done? How would the Lord like this done? When would the Lord like this done? Will the Lord help me do this? What effect will this have for the Lord’s honor? Being a Christian at work means radically Lord-centered living.”

― John Piper

“Pray with me for that touch. If it comes with fire, so be it. If it comes with water, so be it. If it comes with wind, let it come, O God. If it comes with thunder and lightning, let us bow before it. O Lord, come. Come close enough to touch. Shield us with the asbestos of grace, but no more. Pass through all the way to the heart, and touch. Burn and soak and blow and crash. Or, in a still, small voice. Whatever the means, come. Come all the way and touch our hearts.”

― John Piper

“It is our duty and delight to adore our great God, but he is not honored by ignorant adoration, for that can only be a charade. Adoration must be based on some knowledge, otherwise it is not God himself whom we adore.”

― John Piper

“True gratitude must be rooted in something else that comes first, namely, a delight in the beauty and excellency of God’s character.”

― John Piper

“Know the spirit of the age and consciously resist conformity to it (Romans 12:2). As D. L. Moody said, “The ship belongs in the water of the world, but if the water gets in the ship, it sinks.”

― John Piper

“If we are not captured by his personality and character, then all our declarations of thanksgiving are like the gratitude of a wife to a husband for the money she gets from him to use in her affair with another man.”

― John Piper

“O come with me to the Word of God! If this way of carrying it with you does not work for you, then find your own way. Whatever it costs, do not read it and leave it. It transforms us by its presence in our minds, not by staying on the bedside table.”

― John Piper

“Books don’t change people; paragraphs do; sometimes even sentences.”

― John Piper

“What does it mean to be a Christian? Charles Hodge, one of the great nineteenth-century Reformed theologians, sees the answer in this text: “It is being so constrained by a sense of the love of our divine Lord to us, that we consecrate our lives to him.”6”

― John Piper

“Denying rights that protect lesser values to maintain rights that protect greater values is what good laws are supposed to do.”

― John Piper

“As the sin of Adam was legally and effectively the sin of his race; so the death of Christ was legally and effectively the death of his people.”7 Since our death has already occurred, we do not bear that condemnation (Romans 8:1–3). That is the essence of the love of Christ for us. Through his own undeserved death, he died our well-deserved death and opened his future as our future.”

― John Piper

“A Christian is one who recognizes Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, as God manifested in the flesh, loving us and dying for our redemption; and who is so affected by a sense of the love of this incarnate God as to be constrained to make the will of Christ the rule of his obedience, and the glory of Christ the great end for which he lives.”

― John Piper

John Piper

John Piper (1946 - Present)

is a Calvinistic Baptist Christian preacher and author currently serving as Pastor for Preaching and Vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His books include ECPA Christian Book Award winners Spectacular Sins, What Jesus Demands from the World, Pierced by the Word, and God's Passion for His Glory, and bestsellers Don't Waste Your Life and The Passion of Jesus Christ. The evangelical organization Desiring God is named for his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (1986).

In 1980, after what he described as an "irresistible call of the Lord to preach", Piper became Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he has been ministering ever since. Piper hit the evangelical scene after the publication of his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (1986) and has continued to publish dozens of other books further articulating this theological perspective. In 1994, he founded Desiring God Ministries, which provides all of Piper's sermons and articles from the past three decades, and most of his books online free of charge, as well as offering for sale books, CDs, and DVDs and regularly hosting conferences.

John Stephen Piper is a Reformed and Baptist theologian, preacher, and author, currently serving as Pastor for Preaching and Vision of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is the author of numerous books.

Piper's motto in ministry, preaching, and teaching is: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." He calls those who live out this motto Christian Hedonists. Piper places a heavy emphasis on the objective and absolute nature of truth and is confident in the Christian's ability to grasp that truth through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
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