I’m Going to Passion:LA this weekend!
January 23, 2008 by admin · 1 Comment
I’m excited to say that I’ll be in Los Angeles this weekend! Yes, Passion:LA has finally arrived, and it’s been coming to cities around the country to encourage college students to follow Jesus and spread His Fame in their college campuses and beyond. After LA, they plan on doing a World Tour in major cities around the world, so the vision is expanding beyond the USA, and that excites me.
More and more peope are realizing that we are called as followers of Jesus to think Globally, to care about the needs of the world, and to make Disciples of ALL NATIONS.
My first encounter with Passion Conferences was in 2000 for ONE DAY - 20,000+ college students gathered together in a field to worship the Living God, hear solid biblical teaching from John Piper and Louie Giglio, and pray for our generation to follow Jesus and make Him known around the world. Passion is comprised of worship leaders Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Charlie Hall, David Crowder Band. Other speakers have included Beth Moore, Francis Chan.
God has used Passion’s ministry and vision to open my eyes to the HUGENESS of GOD, HIS GLORY, and to understand that WORSHIP IS HOW I LIVE MY LIFE. Since 2000, I have been to One Day 2003, Thirsty Conference, and Passion 2007.
Popularity: 55% [?]
How Can Christians Explain Truth to Others?
December 18, 2007 by admin · 1 Comment
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A clear call to all Christians to GO to unreached people groups
December 4, 2007 by admin · 2 Comments
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Christ must be explicit in our God-talk
November 21, 2007 by admin · 3 Comments
In the last couple years, I have gotten very concerned if God was brought up in church without any mention of Jesus. We are in a culture of people who like God but not are very much fans of the true Jesus, with all he stands for and all he calls people to. As I would share my faith with others, it boiled down most of the time to how they saw Jesus. I even had one high schooler say to me “There are lots of Gods…Bob Marley is God…but I don’t believe in this Jesus.” Churches are very much doing the world and themselves a disservice if they don’t declare Jesus is Lord.
John Piper wrote a tract here that outlines this very point about the importance of being very explicit with Jesus in our God-talk:
Since September 11, 2001, I have seen more clearly than ever how essential it is to exult
explicitly in the excellence of Christ crucified for sinners and risen from the dead. Christ
must be explicit in all our God-talk. It will not do, in this day of pluralism, to talk about
the glory of God in vague ways. God without Christ is no God. And a no-God cannot save or
satisfy the soul. Following a no-God—whatever his name or whatever his religion—will
be a wasted life. God-in-Christ is the only true God and the only path to joy.
To bring us to this highest and most durable of all pleasures, God made his Son, Jesus
Christ, a bloody spectacle of blameless suffering and death. This is what it cost to rescue
us from a wasted life. The eternal Son of God “did not count equality with God a thing to
be grasped, but made himself nothing.” He took “the form of a servant” and was born “in
the likeness of men . . . . He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8).
All Things Were Made for Him
This Jesus was and is a real historical man in whom “the whole fullness of deity dwells
bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Since he is “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God,”
as the old Nicene Creed says, and since his death and resurrection are the central act of
God in history, it is not surprising to hear the Bible say, “All things were created through
him and for him” (Colossians 1:16). For him! That means for his glory.
Ever since the incarnate, redeeming work of Jesus, God is gladly glorified by sinners
only through the glorification of the risen God-Man, Jesus Christ. His bloody death is
the blazing center of the glory of God. There is no way to the glory of the Father but through
the Son. All the promises of joy in God’s presence, and pleasures at his right hand, come to
us only through faith in Jesus Christ.
If We Reject Him, We Reject God
Jesus is the litmus test of reality for all persons and all religions. He said it clearly: “The one
who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16). People and religions who
reject Christ reject God. Do other religions know the true God? Here is the test: Do they
reject Jesus as the only Savior for sinners who was crucified and raised by God from
the dead? If they do, they do not know God in a saving way.
That is what Jesus meant when he said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Or when he said, “Whoever
does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (John 5:23). Or when
he said to the Pharisees, “If God were your Father, you would love me” (John 8:42).
If we would see and savor the glory of God, we must see and savor Christ. For
Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). To put it another way, if
we would embrace the glory of God, we must embrace the Gospel of Christ. The reason for
this is not only because we are sinners and need a Savior to die for us, but also because
this Savior is himself the fullest and most beautiful manifestation of the glory of God.
He purchases our undeserved and everlasting pleasure, and he becomes for us our alldeserving,
everlasting Treasure.
The Gospel is the Good News of the Glory of Christ
This is how the Gospel is defined. When we are converted through faith in Christ, what we see with the eyes of our hearts is “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is
the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). The Gospel is the good news of all-conquering
beauty. Or to say it the way Paul does, it is the good news of “the glory of Christ.”
When we embrace Christ, we embrace God. We see and savor God’s glory. There is no
savoring of God’s glory if we do not see it in Christ. This is the only window through
which a sinner may see the face of God and not be incinerated.
The Bible says that when God illuminates our hearts at conversion, he gives “the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).
Either we see the glory of God “in the face of Jesus Christ,” or we don’t see it at all.
And “the face of Jesus Christ” is the beauty of Christ reaching its climax in the cross.
The bloody face of Christ crucified (and triumphant!) is the countenance of the glory
of God. What was once foolishness to us becomes our wisdom and our power and our
boast (1 Corinthians 1:18, 24).
Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that
it is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in
every pain.
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John Piper Series: Born Again?
November 20, 2007 by admin · 1 Comment
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Let the Nations Be Glad
November 15, 2007 by admin · Leave a Comment
I came across the book “Let The Nations Be Glad” by John Piper recently, and decided to read the first chapter over the internet. So many things hit me and and stirred my heart as I read it with great anticipation for what God would speak to me about. I have since read the whole book and it has changed how I view missions and reaching those who have never heard the Gospel yet!
Read it here yourself to be both encouraged and challenged:
LET THE NATIONS BE GLAD
“My soul was this day, at turns, sweetly set on God: I
longed to be “with him” that I might “behold his glory.” . . . Oh, that his
kingdom might come in the world; that they might all love and glorify
him for what he is in himself; and that the blessed Redeemer might “see
of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied.” Oh, “come, Lord Jesus, come
quickly! Amen.” -David Brainerd, the missionary to the Indians in New Jersey in the
1740s
“As we seek to find out why, with such millions of Christians, the real
army of God that is fighting the hosts of darkness is so small, the only
answer is—lack of heart. The enthusiasm of the kingdom is missing.
And that is because there is so little enthusiasm for the King.” -Andrew Murray’s Key to the Missionary Problem
Peter Beyerhaus also sees it clearly and calls us to put the glory of God at the center of our life and mission:
“We are called and sent to glorify the reign of God and to manifest His
saving work before the whole world. . . . Today it is extremely important
to emphasize the priority of this doxological aim before all other aims
of mission. Our one-sided concern with man and his society threatens
to pervert mission and make it a secular or even a quasi-atheistic undertaking.
We are living in an age of apostasy where man arrogantly makes
himself the measuring rod of all things. Therefore, it is a part of our
missionary task courageously to confess before all enemies of the cross
that the earth belongs to God and to His anointed. . . . Our task in mission
is to uphold the banner of the risen Lord before the whole world,
because it is his own.” -Peter Beyerhaus, Shaken Foundations: Theological Foundations for Missions
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Don’t Waste Your Life
November 15, 2007 by admin · Leave a Comment
“Millions of people are wasting their lives pursuing dreams of happiness that don’t rise above a good marriage, nice kids, a successful career, a nice car, fun vacations, nice friends, a fun retirement, a painless death, and (hopefully) no hell. John Piper calls this a tragedy in the making. He argues that we were created for joy. We were designed to have one passion. In this book he describes his own journey toward this great, single passion. And He pleads that at all costs we pursue our joy in the crucified Christ, who is the glory of God. The cost is great. But the joy is worth any cost.” - dontwasteyourlife.com
To order the catalog specials please call and mention the special code.
Read this book online (1.3MB PDF).
Additional Resources
- Don’t Waste Your Life Study Guide (2.7MB PDF).
- “Don’t Waste Your Life” the audio message.
- Don’t Wase Your Life Gospel-Tract.
John Piper is the author of the book, Don’t Waste Your Life. He is preaching pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN.
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