I (and the kids) have been at my parents all week (that is why it's been a bit quiet on the blog) but I wanted to share a few quotes from Sunday that tied in with my post from Monday...with not only the trials and troubles that we face as believers but all the suffering that is taking place around the world. They are all taken from a message John Piper gave in 2005:
"The joy we embrace in Jesus Christ is always - always in this world - interwoven with sorrow." ("(we are) sorrowful, yet always rejoicing 2 Cor. 6:10)
"Satan is God's most powerful enemy and does much evil in the world, but he must first get God's permission."
"Natural evil (diseases and calamities) is a signpost pointing to the horrors of moral evil."
"The natural world is shot through with horrors to wake us from the dream world of thinking sin is no big deal. It is a horrifically big deal."
"The reason this terrorized and troubled world exists is so that followers of Christ can experience and display that no pleasure and no treasure compares to knowing Christ. That is, the loss of every good thing in this world is meant to reveal that Christ Himself more than compensates for all losses."
"The losses of life are meant to wean us off the poisonous pleasures of the world and to lure us to Christ our everlasting joy."
"Every deadly calamity is a merciful call from God for the living to repent." (John Piper, WORLD magazine)
Comments