The Gospel

I have recently finished reading the book "God is the Gospel" by John Piper which was phenomenal and I would recommend anyone to read it. And This is just a video I liked and thought I'd share.

The Beauty of Christ

Excerpt from the book "God is the Gospel" by John Piper

The spiritual beauty of Christ is Christ in action- Christ loving, and Christ touching lepers, and Christ blessing children, and healing the crippled, and raising the dead, and commanding demons, and teaching with unrivaled authority, and silencing the skeptics, and rebuking his disciples, and predicting the details of his death, and setting his face like flint toward Jerusalem, and weeping over the city, and silent before his accusers, and meekly sovereign over Pilate (John 19:11), and crucified, and praying for his enemies, and forgiving a thief, and caring for his mother while in agony, and giving up his spirit in death, and rising from the dead- "No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again." (John10:18). Such is the glory of Christ

Genesis 25:19-34 Some Notes

Just my notes from today's sermon over Genesis 25:19-34, hope there at all helpful for anything. Some of these points may be helpful only if you listen to the sermon which can be found here: God chooses the least to become his victorious people

- It took 20 years of waiting before Isaac had a son
- Isaac and his family must trust in God alone for a son
- Gen. 25:21 we must not get the idea that this is only the first time Isaac prayed. He PERSISTED for twenty years in prayer
- God gives Rebekah this agonizing birth in order to drive Rebekah to himself.
- They are without son an Isaac prays and God answers and gets the glory, the pregnancy is painful Rebekah prays and God answers and again gets the glory
- The two men are different but not in their masculinity but in their roles
- Jacob was a Shepard of sorts as well as a business type man. (more traditional)
- Esau did not like the traditional roles in the family
- Moses is telling the Israelites this character detail so that Israel is reminded that the nation of Edom are the descendants of Esau.
- Moses links Jacobs name with grabbing Esau's heal which means to be a deceiver.
- Esau despised his birthright and was therefore unworthy to receive the promises of God, he saw being the seed of the woman as nothing of value
- But Jacob didn't deserve to be in the promises of God either so how did Jacob get to be in the seed of the woman
- Because of God's grace! There was nothing Jacob did that was worthy of God's promises (unmerited)
- God is continually choosing the lesser over the greater to bring about his purposes ie. Joseph, David, Solomon, eventually Jesus (born to a poor family, brought up in despised town) and Jesus chooses the 12 disciples ( fishermen, tax collector, etc)
- God saw us in our sin and wretchedness and God chose the least of these
- 1 Cor. 1:25-31
- John 16:33
- 1 John 4:3-4
- Rom. 8:33-35 37-39
- We believe the lie that we can overcome sin on our own. The reality is that left to ourselves we will continue to sin we will only do it privately.
- Stop being prideful and say I need help.
- God wants us to adorn ourselves to godliness
- It will be hard to believe the gospel over the lies of this world
- The question isn't are you an overcomer it is do you believe the gospel and if you do you are victorious
- The Gospel isn't merely for salvation it is also for sanctification.
- We will have to struggle and fight to believe Gods promises
- “I believe; help my unbelief!” Mark 9:24

Desiring God Above All

The critical question for this generation- or for any generation- is this: if one could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict, or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven if Christ were not there

This is a question asked by John Piper among many others over the years, but I feel that many people neglect to ponder and wrestle with this question, or they are so well brought up that they know the "correct" answer but fail to truly believe it. And not to long ago I would have been among this group.


 This question is at the heart of the gospel. Why is it that we believe the gospel, what do we gain. For some it is just a ticket out of hell, others eternal life, and others they want the paradise of heaven. But what many fail to see and others see it but don't believe it to be true is that Christ is the beginning, middle, and end of the gospel. We believe and trust in the gospel not for a free ticket to heaven but because we are allowed to be in the presence of almighty God


The basis of the song "My Hell" by the group Disciple is, as they say, "This was my hell living without you here, even heaven is hell if somehow you were not there...nothing ever will compare."


And that is the question do we really believe that, do you believe that heaven without Christ can compare evenly to the presence of the glory of God. And I pray that you are saying with me a resounding No!


Are we willing to say with Paul, "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ" (Phil. 3:8).

Enemies of the Heart

As I have read through this book there are positives and many negatives in this book.

The Good: I have found that Andy has a lot of good things to say about four very important topics, guilt, greed, anger, and jealousy. He had many good points on the effects of these forces in our lives as well as many good ways in which we can combat against these problems.

The Bad: I have also, however, been disappointed in the amount of Scripture used to back up his points. It seemed as though he only used scripture when it came up rather than showing his points which can be found in the application of scripture.

He goes on countless tangents removing the flow of his arguments. It seemed as if it took him a long time to get to making his points particularly in the beginning of the book making it hard to want to keep reading as it seemed he said the same or similar things for multiple chapters. He doesn't get around to defining the four emotions until chapter 6 and on.

The second half of the book was much better than the first half as he used more scripture and had good practical points but the dismally slow first half of the book as well as overall lack of supporting scripture discouraged me from giving this book a great review, as it is however, I think that there is better literature on this same subject than this book deals out.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.