Top 450 John Piper Quotes (2023 Update)
Page 7 of 10

301. “The key to praying with power is to become the kind of persons who do not use God for our ends but are utterly devoted to being used for His ends.”

— John Piper

302. “If we love God’s fame and are committed to magnifying His name above all things, we cannot be indifferent to world missions.”

— John Piper

303. “It’s amazing how many introverts go into the ministry. It’s amazing how many people go into the ministry who don’t really like to be with people.”

— John Piper

304. “I see no thread running through my work; I simply get on with my life and my painting.”

— John Piper

305. “Whatever it takes, Lord, keep me desperate for You because I tend to wander when I stop feeling my need for You.”

— John Piper

306. “For the mind of faith, a promised act of God is as good as done.”

— John Piper

307. “Intensity is all that matters in painting.”

— John Piper

308. “Faithfulness is only half the equation. God expects fruitfulness as well.”

— John Piper

309. “When the heart no longer feels the truth of hell, the gospel passes from good news to simply news.”

— John Piper

310. “Preaching is the pastor’s main work, and preaching is heart work, not just mental work.”

— John Piper

311. “We will not let you choose between being a lover of God and his sovereignty and being a lover of lost people.”

— John Piper

312. “The Christian life becomes impossible. That is, it becomes supernatural.”

— John Piper

313. “Worship is ultimate, not missions. Because God is ultimate, not man.”

— John Piper

314. “If you must choose between loving someone and acting so that they feel loved, always choose to love them.”

— John Piper

315. “I do not aim to be immediately practical but eternally helpful.”

— John Piper

316. “The right creative act makes its own laws, and always will do.”

— John Piper

317. “The fight for joy in Christ is not a fight to soften the cushion of Western comforts. It is a fight for strength to live a life of self-sacrificing love.”

— John Piper

318. “If my life was to have a single, all-satisfying, unifying passion, it would have to be God’s passion.”

— John Piper

319. “The goal of Bethlehem College and Seminary cannot be expressed with man as the end point. Christ is the endpoint.”

— John Piper

320. “Preferring anything above Christ is the very essence of sin. It must be fought.”

— John Piper

321. “Most foundationally, marriage is the doing of God. And ultimately, marriage is the display of God.”

— John Piper

322. “Abstraction is the way to the heart – it is not the heart itself.”

— John Piper

323. “Enjoyment of Jesus is not like icing on the cake; it’s like powder in the shell.”

— John Piper

324. “Evangelicals are distraught over the state of America because they have not been taught that we’re aliens here.”

— John Piper

325. “Prayer is not for the enhancement of our comforts but for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom.”

— John Piper

326. “No one will be able to rise to the magnificence of the missionary cause who does not feel the magnificence of Christ.”

— John Piper

327. “Some of us are afraid of getting too emotional when we sing. But the problem isn’t emotions. It’s emotionalism. Emotionalism pursues feelings as ends in themselves. It’s wanting to feel something with no regard for how that feeling is produced or its ultimate purpose.”

— John Piper

328. “We are more than a collection of appetites – we are of God.”

— John Piper

329. “There are two basic restrictions on marriage in the Bible: Number one, she should marry a man. Number two, he should be a Christian.”

— John Piper

330. “Our concern with truth is simply an echo of our concern with God .”

— John Piper

331. “Prayer is the form of faith that connects us today with the grace that will make us adequate for tomorrow’s ministry.”

— John Piper

332. “If we abandon the fullness of the gospel to make racial and ethnic diversity quicker or easier, we create a mere shadow of the kingdom, an imitation.”

— John Piper

333. “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.”

— John Piper

334. “I just want to preach so bad I can hardly stand it. I love what I do.”

— John Piper

335. “Why Christians do what they do is just as important as what they do. Bad motives ruin good acts.”

— John Piper

336. “Homosexual behavior has been exploited, and reveled in, and celebrated in art, for millennia.”

— John Piper

337. “Therefore we should pray for each other the way Jesus prays for us in John 17:17 – “Sanctify them in the truth; thy Word is truth.”

— John Piper

338. “God is not worshiped where He is not treasured and enjoyed.”

— John Piper

339. “I’ve always wondered, am I a writer who preaches or a preacher who writes? I don’t know. I love them both.”

— John Piper

340. “If you have pity for perishing people and a passion for the reputation of Christ, you must care about world missions.”

— John Piper

341. “The most precious gifts you can think of are not ends in themselves. They all lead to God. Ultimately, that is what all His gifts are for.”

— John Piper

342. “The church is not called to be responsible for the way unbelievers run their lives. But we are called to be responsible, by the power of the Spirit and for the glory of Jesus, for the way believers live and the kind of relationships that are cultivated in the fellowship of the church.”

— John Piper

343. “We ought not speak too long about God with our minds before we turn and speak to God from our heart. We must stir a lot of prayer into the stew of our theology.”

— John Piper

344. “Which means, therefore, that our Bible reading is never just for seeing, never just for learning and doctrine. It is not even just for savoring, if that savoring is thought of in a private way that leaves us unchanged in our relationship with others. No. We read the Bible – we always read the Bible – for the kind of seeing and savoring Christ that transforms us into his likeness.”

— John Piper

345. “Brand-new truths are probably not Truths.”

— John Piper

346. “Indeed the devil thinks more true thoughts about God in one day than a saint does in a lifetime, and God is not honored by it. The problem with the devil is not his theology, but his desires. Our chief end is to glorify God, the great Object. We do so most fully when we treasure him, desire him, delight in him so supremely that we let goods and kindred go and display his love to the poor and the lost.”

— John Piper

347. “Do you love the cross because it makes much of you? Or do you love it because it enables you to enjoy and eternity of making much of God?”

— John Piper

348. “But we also need stories. Great stories.”

— John Piper

349. “We would do our theology better if more was at stake in what we said.”

— John Piper

350. “When a sinful person meets the holy God in Christ, what he hears is Yes. God, do you love me? Yes. Will you forgive me? Yes. Will you accept me? Yes. Will you help me change? Yes. Will you give me power to serve you? Yes. Will you keep me? Yes. Will you show me your glory? Yes.”

— John Piper