A Quote by John Piper
We are not as Christ-centered and cross-cherishing as we should be, because we do not ponder the truth that everything good, and everything bad that God turns for the good, was purchased by the sufferings of Christ.
Related Quotes
To know the Cross is not merely to know our own sufferings. For the Cross is the sign of salvation, and no man is saved by his own sufferings. To know the Cross is to know that we are saved by the sufferings of Christ; more, it is to know the love of Christ Who underwent suffering and death in order to save us. It is, then, to know Christ.
Accommodation is a central aspect of the cross-centered interpretation of violent portraits of God that I'm advocating. Like everything else in Cross Vision, this concept is anchored in the cross. On the cross, God stoops to meet us, and to enter into solidarity with us, right where we are at, which is in bondage to sin and to Satan. And he does this to free us and to bring us where he wants us to be, which is united with him in Christ. The cross is thus the paradigmatic example of God mercifully stooping to accommodate people in their fallen conditioning.
To worship God 'in spirit and in truth' is first and foremost a way of saying that we must worship God by means of Christ. In him the reality has dawned and the shadows are being swept away (Hebrews 8:13). Christian worship is new covenant worship; it is gospel-inspired worship; it is Christ-centered worship; it is cross-focused worship.
Father is the existence out of which everything comes; Son is that knowledge. It is in Christ that God will be manifest. God was everywhere, in all beings, before Christ; but in Christ we became conscious of Him. This is God. The third is bliss, the Holy Spirit.
Truth is never our enemy, ever. So we should never freak out about people who claim to have discovered truth. If it's true truth, God owns it and has already accounted for it, and while nothing that is true ever contradicts God's revealed word in the Bible, discovered truth sometimes contradicts the words of Christians. We shouldn't be afraid of this, because God knew it before anybody else and its discovery is dependent on his sovereignty anyway. The truth is that the truth is ours - all truth is our truth because we are of Christ and Christ is of the sovereign God.
Thus to share in the sufferings of Christ is, at the same time, to suffer for the kingdom of God. In the eyes of the just God, before his judgment. Those who share in the sufferings of Christ become worthy of this kingdom.
It seemed to me certain, and I still think so today, that one can never wrestle enough with God if one does so out of pure regard for the truth. Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms.
The essence of Christianity is centered upon the Lord Jesus Christ. The sum and substance of being a Christian is trusting Christ with the entirety of one's being. The height of the Christian life is adoring Christ, the depth of it loving Him, the breadth of it obeying Him, and the length of it following Him. Everything in the Christian life revolves around Jesus Christ. Simply put, Christianity is Christ.
The single most important thread in working through your disappointments is that your heart and mind ponder and grasp what the cross of Jesus Christ is all about. There is no pattern without the cross. There is no Good News without it. That is what the gospel is all about.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is good news, glad tidings, and much more. It is the message of salvation as repeatedly announced by Jesus Christ and His apostles and prophets. It is my firm belief that all truth and light originating with God is embraced in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
What you think now about the cross of Christ, I cannot tell; but I can wish you nothing better than this - that you may be able to say with the apostle Paul, before you die or meet the Lord, 'God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.'
If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth, and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.
If God gives you an abundant harvest of trials, it is a sign of great holiness which He desires you to attain. Do you want to become a great saint? Ask God to send you many sufferings. The flame of Divine Love never rises higher than when fed with the wood of the Cross, which the infinite charity of the Savior used to finish His sacrifice. All the pleasures of the world are nothing compared with the sweetness found in the gall and vinegar offered to Jesus Christ. That is, hard and painful things endured for Jesus Christ and with Jesus Christ.
Imagine everything you're experiencing now being a hundred times more wonderful. Bad turns good; good turns great. THAT IS WHAT IS POSSIBLE.
I still have a lot to learn about what the love of Christ is like - that it's not just knowledge... but it's allowing the truth to change you - allowing Christ's message of grace and hope and love through the cross, that that message is the message that changes the way we look at everything in our lives.
Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort me and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
Related Authors
Aiden Wilson Tozer Quotes
American
Priest
Billy Graham Quotes
American
Priest
Charles Spurgeon Quotes
British
Priest
Gordon B. Hinckley Quotes
American
Priest
Henri Nouwen Quotes
Dutch
Priest
Henry Ward Beecher Quotes
American
Priest
Joel Osteen Quotes
American
Priest
John C. Maxwell Quotes
American
Priest
Max Lucado Quotes
American
Priest
Norman Vincent Peale Quotes
American
Priest
Pema Chodron Quotes
American
Priest
Pope Benedict XVI Quotes
German
Priest
Pope Francis Quotes
Argentinian
Priest
Rajneesh Quotes
Indian
Priest
Swami Vivekananda Quotes
Indian
Priest
Thomas S. Monson Quotes
American
Priest