John Piper - Pierced by the Word: Thirty-One Meditations for Your Soul

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
H EBREWS 4:12

I LOVE THE WORD OF GOD. I DONT SAY IT LIGHTLY . It is a terrible thing. The voice of the L ORD strips the forest bare! (Psalm 29:9). By His Word, God created the universe. And when His Son comes again, His Word will be like a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations (Revelation 19:15). So I tremble before the Word of God.

But this trembling is sweet. There is a promise attached to it. God says, This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word (Isaiah 66:2). Not every look of God is to be desired. But this one is. It is the look of blessing. And when God blesses the broken and contrite, His Word becomes Life. Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life (John 6:68).

Yes, the Word pierces. And there is pain. But for those who trust in the living Word, Jesus Christ, all the piercing will be pleasant in the end. The boil will be lanced. The cancer cut out. The poison removed. For those who trust the severe mercy of Jesus, all piercing is healing.

I pray that these meditations will reveal and not conceal the Word of God. May they become in your life the living embodiment of that Word and penetrate to the deep places of your soul. God has a good work to do there.

John Piper

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H OW S TRANGE AND W ONDERFUL I S THE L OVE OF C HRIST !

FOR MANY YEARS I HAVE SOUGHT TO UNDERSTAND HOW the God-centeredness of God relates to His love for sinners like us. Most people do not immediately see Gods passion for the glory of God as an act of love. One reason for this is that we have absorbed the worlds definition of love. It says: You are loved when you are made much of.

The main problem with this definition of love is that when you try to apply it to Gods love for us, it distorts reality. Gods love for us is not mainly His making much of us, but His giving us the ability to enjoy making much of Him forever. In other words, Gods love for us keeps God at the center. Gods love for us exalts His value and our satisfaction in it. If Gods love made us central and focused on our value, it would distract us from what is most precious; namely, Himself. Love labors and suffers to enthrall us with what is infinitely and eternally satisfying: God. Therefore Gods love labors and suffers to break our bondage to the idol of self and focus our affections on the treasure of God.

In a surprising way we can see this in the story of Lazaruss sickness and death.

1 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill. 4 But when Jesus heard it he said, This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. (John 11:16)