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“God aims to exalt himself by working for those who wait for him. Prayer is the essential activity of waiting for God: acknowledging our helplessness and his power, calling upon him for help, seeking his counsel.”
― John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist

“Putting it in my own words, [Edwards] said that the infinite complexity of the divine mind is such that God has the capacity to look at the world through two lenses. He can look through a narrow lens or through a wide-angle lens.

When God looks at a painful or wicked event through his narrow lens, he sees the tragedy or sin for what it is in itself and he is angered and grieved. "I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the LORD God" (Ezekiel 18:32).

But when God looks at a painful or wicked event through his wide-angle lens, he sees the tragedy or the sin in relation to everything leading up to it and everything flowing out from it. He sees it in all the connections and effects that form a pattern or mosaic stretching into eternity. This mosaic- in all its parts- good and evil- brings him delight.”
― John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist

“God is not looking for people to work for him, so much as he is looking for people ho will let him work for them. The gospel is not a Help Wanted ad. Neither is the call to to Christian service. On the contrary, the gospel commands us to give up and hang out a Help Wanted sign (this is the basic meaning of prayer). Then the gospel promises that God will work for us if we do. He will not surrender the glory of being the Giver.”
― John Piper

“To Jesus it is inconceivable that someone would dare ask God for full and free forgiveness while remaining as an unforgiving person towards others. The forgiven forgive and the forgivers are forgiven.”
― James R. Beck, Jesus and Personality Theory: Exploring the Five-Factor Model