Don't Waste Your Life

by John Piper

“Your steadfast love never ceases; your mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning (and every afternoon!); great is your faithfulness!” (paraphrase of Lamentations 3:22-23).

In this way we fellowship with God, listening to him through his Word and thanking him and praising him and calling on him for all we need.

God delights in being trusted and enjoyed.

Work Is Not a Curse; Futility Is

you are God, your work is to create out of nothing. If you are not God, but like God—that is, if you are human—your work is to take what God has made and shape it and use it to make him look great.

All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all.

To be sure, when God sends us forth to work as his image-bearers, our ditches are to be dug straight, our pipe-fittings are not to leak, our cabinet corners should be flush, our surgical incisions should be clean, our word processing accurate and appealing, and our meals nutritious and attractive, because God is a God of order and beauty and competence.

Retired people who are truly happy have sought creative, useful, God-honoring ways to stay active and productive for the sake of man’s good and God’s glory.

But if we labor with the sweet assurance that God will supply all our needs—that Christ died to purchase every undeserved blessing—then all our labor will be a labor of love and a boasting only in the cross.

We make much of Christ in our secular work by treating the web of relationships it creates as a gift of God to be loved by sharing the Gospel and by practical deeds of help.

Missions is not only crucial for the life of the world. It is crucial for the life of the church. We will perish with our wealth if we do not pour ourselves out in ministries of mercy at home and missions among the unreached peoples.

God seldom calls us to an easier life, but always calls us to know more of him and drink more deeply of his sustaining grace.

Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.”