Comments»

1. Barrett -

I’ll start.

Don’t Waste Your Life

I first learned about this book through the message Piper preached in 2003. I first heard it in December 2006, and since my 23rd birthday was coming up, I asked my wife to buy this book for me for my present. Typically around my birthday, I tend to look back at the previous years and enter into a funk. I know, I’m only 23, but it still happens. So I began this year by reading this book, and it has changed so many areas in my life. First and foremost, my retirement is ruined! (Thanks Pastor John ) I used to look forward to napping, and golf, and sitting on the front porch drinking lemonade, but after reading this book, I know that these things are no longer possible in my own life. I now look forward to “retirement” as an open book, full of possibilities and freedom for wherever God sends me. More importantly than that, however, is the application to my life now. This book helped me to realize how even my daily religiosity has been a means by which I glorify myself and waste my life. I think this book should be given out at graduations, retirement ceremonies, weddings, funerals, baby showers, birthdays, Sundays, and any other excuse you can find to give away a book. If John could write a shorter version (or use the full-length) that could be sold by the case for giving away, I think God would bless it tremendously.

Thank you John for writing this book, and for cultivating in today’s generation the theology of yesterday’s generation.

2. Eddie -

My Recommendation:

God Is The Gospel

I think this book is absolutely essential reading because Piper has done something that I have never heard in my entire life, even YEARS after I believed to have put my faith in Christ alone: He has taught me that GOD HIMSELF is the ultimate, chief, and highest good of the gospel and not merely His “gifts”. Consider the excerpt below, which I believe, if most evangelicals were to read even this mere portion alone, it would 1) radically change their view of God, 2)the intensity by which they live their lives, and 3) quite possibly save them from shock on the day of Judgement where Christ declares: “I never knew you”.

“Every person should be required to answer the question, “Why is it good news to you that your sins are forgiven?” “Why is it good news to you that you stand righteous in the courtroom of the Judge of the universe?” The reason this must be asked is that there are seemingly biblical answers that totally ignore the gift of God himself. A person may answer, “Being forgiven is good news because I don’t want to go to hell.” Or a person may answer, “Being forgiven is good news because a guilty conscience is a horrible thing, and I get great relief when I believe my sins are forgiven.” Or a person may answer, “I want to go to heaven.” But then we must ask why they want to go to heaven. They might answer, “Because the alternative is painful.” Or “because my deceased wife is there.” Or “because there will be a new heaven and a new earth where justice and beauty will finally be everywhere.” What’s wrong with these answers? It’s true that no one should want to go to hell. Forgiveness does indeed relieve a guilty conscience. In heaven we will be restored to loved ones who died in Christ, and we will escape the pain of hell and enjoy the justice and the beauty of the new earth. All that is true. So what’s wrong with those answers? What’s wrong with them is that they do not treat God as the final and highest good of the gospel. They do not express a supreme desire to be with God. God was not even mentioned. Only his gifts were mentioned. These gifts are precious. But they are not God. And they are not the gospel if God himself is not cherished as the supreme gift of the gospel. That is, if God is not treasured as the ultimate gift of the gospel, none of his gifts will be gospel, good news. And if God is treasured as the supremely valuable gift of the gospel, then all the other lesser gifts will be enjoyed as well. Justification is not an end in itself. Neither is the forgiveness ofsins or the imputation of righteousness. Neither is escape from hell or entrance into heaven or freedom from disease or liberation from bondage or eternal life or justice or mercy or the beauties of a pain-free world. None of these facets of the gospel-diamond is the chief good or highest goal of the gospel. Only one thing is: seeing and savoring God himself, being changed into the image of his Son so that more and more we delight in and display God’s infinite beauty and worth… My point in this book is that all the saving events and all the saving blessings of the gospel are means of getting obstacles out of the way so that we might know and enjoy God most fully. Propitiation, redemption, forgiveness, imputation, sanctification, liberation, healing, heaven—none of these is good news except for one reason: they bring us to God for our everlasting enjoyment of him. If we believe all these things have happened to us, but do not embrace them for the sake of getting to God, they have not happened to us. 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.”

The first time I heard the thrust of this message was in January 2005 on from a sermon snippet by John Piper on a hip-hop cd entitled “The Solus Christus Project” by shai linne. I thank God to this day that I heard that message. It has challenged my heart ever since to make God alone my portion (Psalm 73).

3. Jeff de Ruyter -

Desiring God

4. Juan Z -

Wow what a passage! I am will buying God is the Gospel!