November 29, 2010

• "Don't Waste Your Life" FREE audiobook download!

  From the christianaudio website:

  "christianaudio, Crossway Books, and Desiring God have partnered together for the month of November 2010 to bring you the audiobook download of Don't Waste Your Life for FREE!"

  Hooray! If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that God has greatly used John Piper, and in particular his book "Don't Waste Your Life,"  to impact my life (please see the links at the end of this post).
  
  Here are a couple excerpts from chapter 7 (Living to Prove He Is More Precious Than Life) of "Don't Waste Your Life" (Wheaton: Crossway, 2003, 111-112, 117-118):

  Sometimes I use the phrase “wartime lifestyle” or “wartime mind-set.” The phrase is helpful—but also lopsided. For me it is mainly helpful. It tells me that there is a war going on in the world between Christ and Satan, truth and falsehood, belief and unbelief. It tells me that there are weapons to be funded and used, but that these weapons are not swords or guns or bombs but the Gospel and prayer and self-sacrificing love (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). And it tells me that the stakes of this conflict are higher than any other war in history; they are eternal and infinite: heaven or hell, eternal joy or eternal torment (Matthew 25:46).
  
  I need to hear this message again and again, because I drift into a peacetime mind-set as certainly as rain falls down and flames go up. I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start to call earth “home.” Before you know it, I am calling luxuries “needs” and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin to forget the war. I don’t think much about people perishing. Missions and unreached peoples drop out of my mind. I stop dreaming about the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mind-set that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced me again and again toward a wartime mind-set...
  
  
  But I admit, as I said above, that the term “wartime lifestyle” or “wartime mind-set” is lopsided. After one sermon in which I used these terms one person wrote to me and asked, “When you stress the imagery of wartime living, do you leave any room for aspects of life that are not part of war, like art or leisure? Are there not other images of the Christian life that are more restful than war?”
  
  Here is the answer I gave in my next message:

  The answer is, yes, absolutely, there are other images of the Christian life that are more restful. “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters” (Psalm 23:1-2). That is a very different image than bombs dropping and blood flowing. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). “Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (Isaiah 46:4).

  And yes, there is a proper time and place for the Christian to benefit from, evaluate, and transform the whole range of human culture. In fact, it is virtually impossible not to be a part of our modern, Western culture; and if we do not think in terms of measured appropriation, biblical evaluation, and thoughtful transformation, we will probably be consumed by the culture, and won’t even know that we are more American than we are Christian.

  So, yes, by all means, use all the images of Scripture (not just war) to shape your life. And then let your radically Christian, God-enthralled, Christ-treasuring, giving-oriented life engage and shape your culture.

  But my sense is that in the prosperous West, the danger in the church is not that there are too many overly zealous people who care too deeply about the lost, and invest hazardously in the cause of the Gospel, and ruin their lives with excessive mercy to the poor. For every careless saint who burns himself out and breaks up his family with misdirected zeal, I venture, there are a thousand who coast with the world, treating Jesus like a helpful add-on, but not as an all-satisfying, all-authoritative King in the cause of love.

   

  We all need to hear that message again and again!

  Dr. Piper's desire is also my desire and prayer for each of you:

  But whatever you do, find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not waste your life. - John Piper ("Don't Waste Your Life," 47)

  Have you found that passion?

  May God give each of us grace to treasure Christ above all things.

  May God give us ears to hear so we might treasure Christ above all things and not waste our lives!

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  You still have time to get the audiobook download. Please click HERE for more information. BTW: You can put your order in – just be sure to do so before the end of the day on November 30 - that's TOMORROW! – and then you can download the audiobook anytime within the next year at your leisure. If you don't already have an account at christianaudio, you'll have to sign up for one (free).

  After having your fill of turkey and the trimmings, and while you are on the brink of yet another so-called "Christmas season" that will end up leaving your soul empty and dry, why not fill up on something that will help lead you to the Jesus Christ, the true Bread and the living Water, so your souls might be fully satisfied and overflow with love and hope and peace and gladness? Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

  How has God been challenging you not to waste your life?
  What are you doing about it?

  * * *

  PLEASE NOTE: The free audiobook from christianaudio is no longer available, but you can access these resources for free via Desiring God:
  
  Don't Waste Your Life - Online Book
  John Piper's message "Don't Waste Your Life"
  John Piper's message "The Origin of the Unwasted Life"

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  Related posts:

  (7) Kingdom-Obsessed People don't retire
  John Piper's writing leave (& his impact on me)
  needing to keep feeding the white-hot flame of God's gift (John Piper)
  Get gnawing, put your nose down in the Book to feed the white-hot flame of God's gift
  Naphtali News - going on retreat, asking prayer
  my holy ambition
  Father, don't let me waste my life
  Are You Working on the Wall? (redemption, spiritual gifts, the glory of God, joy & holy ambition)
  Resurrection Day: Don't Waste Your Life (Lecrae) | Whose Life is it anyhow?
  Thank you, John Piper
  O, who am I, Lord God, to know You as my exceeding joy! Ah, but how am I to make You known!
  "Call to Me and I will answer you" (thoughts on holy ambition)
  adopting God's purpose for the nations is for your joy & His glory (Letter 76 on joy)

  • 12:55 PM
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