I’ve gone back to this song a lot since our daughter died in December. The Piper soliloquoy in the middle of the song is life-changing.

Don’t say, “it’s meaningless!” It’s not. It’s working for you an eternal weight of glory. Therefore do not lose heart, but take these truths and day by day focus on them. Preach them to yourself every morning. Get alone with God and preach his word into your mind until your heart sings with confidence that you are new and cared for.

I think about enduring in faith in Jesus until the very end of my days (whenever that might be) quite often. My friend Josh always reminds me that only two or three of us out of 10 men will be left standing strong in faith until death. That’s a sobering thing and a staggering reminder of how much life I’ve yet to live.

John Piper wrote about this a little bit today and I was crushed by it. By the thought of the long (and also short) road until the end of life. By the thought of not retiring. By the though of seeing Kate in real retirement.

Not everyone gets the privilege. Some die young. Some must bear the burden of immobilizing pain. But millions of you are free. If you do not dream a joyful dream of productive service for Christ in your seventies, what will you say to the Savior? Your only excuse will be that you listened to the voice of this age rather than to God’s. It will not be a good excuse.

I’m hopeful for the privilege and hopeful that when I land in it that I’ve already laid a solid foundation upon which to work and build deep into my decades on earth.

Austin Phelps writes of watching people in the Royal Gallery at Dresden sitting for hours before a single masterpiece painting.

“Weeks are spent every year in the study of that one work of Raphael. Lovers of art cannot enjoy it to the full, till they have made it their own by prolonged communion with its matchless form.”

How much more should we give this kind of patient attention to prayer?

[Prayer by Keller]

Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. -Luke 12:32

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,  even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,  to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1:3-6)

“We worship the god of open options. And he is killing us. He kills our relationships, because he tells us it’s better not to become too involved. He kills our service to others because he tells us it might be better to keep our weekends to ourselves.

“He kills our giving because he tells us these are uncertain financial times and you never know when you might need that money. He kills our joy in Christ because he tells us it’s better not to be thought of as too spiritual.”

–Desiring God

And how are these things reconciled? Why must we choose Christ in lieu of all other things? Because He did it himself, of course.

“Choose the God who closed off all other alternatives so that he could pursue for himself one bride. Choose the God who chose not to come down from the cross until she was won.”

This is absolutely immense:

“But God most certainly does care who wins — just not in the way we do, and certainly not in the way implied by most post-game interviews. He cares about everything that happens in the universe.

“We care because we’ve replaced God with games, making them an idolatrous substitute for God himself. He cares because game outcomes produce an opportunity for his people to glorify him through their choice to keep the game second — regardless of outcome.”

–Desiring God

“In the U.S., abortion is the blood sacrifice we make on the altar to the goddess of unfettered sexual behavior.” –@TrevinWax

— Matt Smethurst (@MattSmethurst) January 22, 2015

I recently finished Piper’s “Does God Desire All To Be Saved” which just from the title I think you can predict what you’re getting into there.

It was good, though. It took me about five hours to read 50+ pages and I think I have more questions than answers now but I recommend it.

This from Jonathan Edwards on God’s supreme desires and how he uses sin to carry out His ultimate plan stood out:

“God, though he hates a thing as it is simply, may incline to it with reference to the universality of things. Though he hates sin in itself, yet he may will to permit it for the greater promotion of holiness in this universality including all things at all times.

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