Desiring God

But I come out and I'm on a bench.

I notice that there's a book, Desiring God by John Piper.

And so I announced the whole locker room.

I go, who's reading Piper by John Piper? And it's Mike Kelly.

Articles by Desiring God Does Joy in God Touch All of Life? Written and read by Clinton Manley I was wet concrete drying quickly.

It was 2017.

My wife and I had just spent a year in New Zealand doing ministry with Calvary Chapel Bible Institute.

Still grappling with many of these, we moved to Molokai, Hawaii, where I became a full-time pastor for the church I grew up in.

In this malleable state, I encountered two books that forever shaped me.

The first was Desiring God.

In it, John Piper unpacks the truths that undergird Christian hedonism.

Chief among them, the indispensable reality that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

But they just, you know, as I mean, one trip I made to China a few years ago, I was talking with a pastor and he said, yeah, he said, everything is harder, much more restrictive.

But let me tell you what God is doing in my church.

You know, he didn't necessarily want to talk about how hard it was like, well, that's a given.

But here's what we're doing.

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And of course, if you're on YouTube listening or watching, then comment, engage, share it with five people that you know that would be encouraged or who is interested in China or who needs a little bit of uplifting, like I said, encouragement by what you heard about the church in China, because it's a lot of good stuff that's going on there.

And God is really working and moving in a place where, as Joanne described it, the birdcage is shrinking, but it's not gone.

It's just shrinking.

I prayed for your strength, faith, and family.

God's richest blessings upon you." Max is famous.

He's got a huge platform.

He's adored by millions, but that is not at all why I admire Max.

Now, that said, uh, just, or well, just a couple weeks ago, I was racking my brain for that famous A.W. Tozer tro- quote.

Yeah.

Um, and even right now I'm going, "The most important thing about you is what you think of when you think of God." You know what I'm talking about?

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Um, it's an interesting command, an interesting word to finish on.

10 words that were given to the Israelites in this, like, marriage ceremony of God marrying this people, b- b- uh, building a covenant, uh, a, a decision to, like, do life together.

And these 10 words were meant to be ways in which the people of Israel, the people of God, mirrored him in the world.

They were meant to be his image.

They were meant to show the world what he looked like.

And this is an interesting command to end on.

Why would God choose this word, covet? Um, I think I've been t- digging into the Hebrew this week, and I, I think there is a better word to describe, uh, this word covet, and it's the word desire.

Do not desire your neighbor's house, or your neighbor's wife, or your neighbor's ox or donkey or s- female or male servant.

[gentle music] The testimony of God to the gospel is this: He gives us life.

In that moment, as the gospel is shining through your natural eyes into your natural brain, processed by reasoning, grammatical, syntactical, logical faculties, nothing is happening.

And suddenly, God witnesses to it.

Not meaning He whispers a voice, but that He gives you life.

[gentle music] I've often thought about the fact that two people can sit side by side, hear the same sermon, and walk away with completely different reactions.

One is drawn in, and the other can't wait for it to end.

What makes the difference? I'm your host, Dan Kruger.

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper reflects on the miracle that lies beneath genuine faith and explains how God's Spirit persuades people of the truth by making them alive.