“Make this the year you stop complaining about your weaknesses, and instead search for their God-given purpose.”

“For in the end, it is not Edwards or Piper or any other man who compels true faith, but God himself.”

“El péndulo de nuestro matrimonio oscila y a veces tambalea, pero está suspendido desde arriba y asido firmemente. Por la gracia de Dios no caerá al suelo.”

“Our believing does not cause new birth. The new birth causes our belief.”

“Yet this book is written in the desire—perhaps in a measure of inner certainty—that we shall see the great Head of the Church once more bring into being His special instruments of revival, that He will again raise up unto Himself certain young men whom He may use in this glorious employ. And what manner of men will they be? Men mighty in the Scriptures, their lives dominated by a sense of the greatness, the majesty and holiness of God, and their minds and hearts aglow with the great truths of the doctrines of grace. They will be men who have learned what it is to die to self, to human aims and personal ambitions; men who are willing to be “fools for Christ’s sake”, who bear reproach and falsehood, who will labour and suffer, and whose supreme desire will be, not to gain earth’s accolades, but to win the Master’s approbation when they appear before His awesome judgment seat. They will be men who will preach with broken hearts and tear-filled eyes, and upon whose ministries God will grant an extraordinary effusion of the Holy Spirit, and who will witness “signs and wonders following” in the transformation of multitudes of human lives.”

“Christ deals with his church as a father…He has not contented himself with only saying, ‘Be kind one to another,’ knowing that a care that lies in everybody’s hands equally is like to be neglected, but he has appointed officers, that his children may be fed in both body and soul as their necessities require”

“God’s glory is the proclamation of his name, the shining forth of his ways. Therefore, for us to say that we are about the glory of God means that we are about God being seen for who he is.”

“THE S URPASSING G OAL : M ARRIAGE L IVED FOR THE G LORY OF G OD John Piper M y topic for this chapter is “Marriage lived for the glory of God.” The decisive word in that topic is the word “for.” “Marriage lived for the glory of God.” The topic is not: “The glory of God for the living of marriage.” And not: “Marriage lived by the glory of God.” But: “Marriage lived for the glory of God.”

“The one who is sufficient for the life and work of the ministry is the one who “lives the life of faith and prayer” and who seeks to fill “his head [with] all knowledge and his heart with all holiness” in pursuit of his Lord.”

“If there is any one “secret” of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time. — Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive”

“When we reach the final judgment, we are not to give back to the Lord simply what we were originally given. We are to get a return on our lives and return to Jesus more than he gave us.”

“For if good works are everything we do in faith, including our work and the demands of our daily lives, then surely our work lives are not an exception to the command to love others as ourselves.”

“Wilberforce understood that massive practical action for good comes about not first as a result of moral exhortation or appeals to change but rather as a result of understanding and embracing doctrine — most centrally the doctrine of justification by faith alone.”

“The aim needs to be not simply to get our tasks done but to build people up in the accomplishing of our tasks.”

“When you don't have your work clearly defined, there can never be any finish point.”

“The knowledge worker cannot be supervised closely or in detail. He must direct himself toward performance and contribution”

“our conscious mind is intended as a focusing tool, not a storage place.”

“We cannot be truly productive unless all our activity stems from love for God and the acknowledgment that he is sovereign over all our plans.”

“And yet for all his help, we are enigmatic friends in return. We are forgetful and faithless and disloyal, but our neglect and distrust and disobedience does not diminish his love for us. He is steadfast. He’s the Friend we wish we could be. He’s the all-sufficient Friend we need. And if he were not, he would surely “spurn us from his sight.”46 Christ is the perfect Friend.”

“The great end of the gospel is holiness and happiness. It is the complete restoration of the soul to the image of God. It sets aright all the evil in this world. The plan has been put in motion, the payment price of the cross has been made. The wedding feast has been planned. The all-sufficient Husband is in place.29”