Future Grace Quotes

“Both are manifestations of pride. Boasting is the response of pride to success. Self-pity is the response of pride to suffering. Boasting says, “I deserve admiration because I have achieved so much.” Self-pity says, “I deserve admiration because I have sacrificed so much.” Boasting is the voice of pride in the heart of the strong. Self-pity is the voice of pride in the heart of the weak.
The reason self-pity does not look like pride is that it appears to be needy. But the need arises from a wounded ego and the desire of the self-pitying is not really for others to see them as helpless, but heroes. The need self-pity feels does not come from a sense of unworthiness, but from a sense of unrecognized worthiness. It is the response of unapplauded pride.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“The only life I have left to live is future life. The past is not in my hands to offer or alter. It is gone. Not even God will change the past. All the expectations of God are future expectations. All the possibilities of faith and love are future possibilities. And all the power that touches me with help to live in love is future power. As precious as the bygone blessings of God may be, if He leaves me only with the memory of those, and not with the promise of more, I will be undone. My hope for future goodness and future glory is future grace.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“Sin is what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God. No one sins out of duty. We sin because it holds out some promise of happiness. That promise enslaves us until we believe that God is more to be desired than life itself (Psalm 63:3).”
― John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

“Impatience is a form of unbelief. It’s what we begin to feel when we start to doubt the wisdom of God’s timing or the goodness of God’s guidance. It springs up in our hearts when our plan is interrupted or shattered. It may be prompted by a long wait in a checkout line or a sudden blow that knocks out half our dreams. The opposite of impatience is not a glib denial of loss. It’s a deepening, ripening, peaceful willingness to wait for God in the unplanned place of obedience, and to walk with God at the unplanned pace of obedience—to wait in his place, and go at his pace.”
― John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

“Picture salvation as a house that you live in. It provides you with protection. It is stocked with food and drink that will last forever. It never decays or crumbles. Its windows open onto vistas of glory. God built it at great cost to Himself and to His Son, and He gave it to you. The purchase agreement is called a 'new covenant.' The terms read: 'This house shall become and remain yours if you will receive it as a gift and take delight in the Father and the Son as they inhabit the house with you. You shall not profane the house of God by sheltering other gods nor turn our heart away after other treasures.' Would it not be foolish to say yes to this agreement, and then hire a lawyer to draw up an amortization schedule with monthly payments in the hopes of somehow balancing accounts. You would be treating the house no longer as a gift, but a purchase. God would no longer be the free benefactor. And you would be enslaved to a new set of demands that he never dreamed of putting on you. If grace is to be free - which is the very meaning of grace - we cannot view it as something to be repaid.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“God's reality is overwhelmingly intrusive in all the details of life.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“When something drops into your life that seems to threaten your future, remember this: the first shockwaves of the bomb are not sin. The real danger is yielding to them. Giving in. Putting up no spiritual fight. And the root of that surrender is unbelief - a failure to fight for faith in future grace. A failure to cherish all that God promises to be for us in Jesus.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“When you take all three categories of temptation to self-reliance – wisdom, might and riches – they form a powerful inducement toward the ultimate form of pride, namely, atheism. The safest way to stay supreme in our own estimation is to deny anything above us. This is why the proud preoccupy themselves with looking down on others. A proud man is always looking down on things and people and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. But to preserve pride it may be simpler to proclaim that there is nothing above to look at (Psalm 10:4). Ultimately, the proud must persuade themselves that there is no God.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“When faith is in fullest operation, it pictures a future with a God who is so powerful and so loving and so wise and so satisfying that this future-picturing faith experiences assurance. Now.”
― John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

“Prayer is the form of faith that connects us today with the grace that will make us adequate for tomorrow’s ministry.”
― John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

“It would seem more appropriate to say that we are debtors to God’s justice, not to his grace.”
― John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

“If you hold a grudge, you doubt the Judge.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“Grace is free because God would not be the infinite, self-sufficient God He is if he were constrained by anything outside Himself.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“What then do we learn from Paul's unbroken pattern of beginning and ending his letters this way ("Grace be to you." "Grace be with you.")? We learn that grace is an unmistakable priority in the Christian life. We learn that it is from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, but that it can come through people. We learn that grace is ready to flow to us every time we take up the inspired Scriptures to read them. And we learn that grace will abide with us when we lay the Bible down and go about our daily living.
In other words, we learn that grace is not merely a past reality but a future one. Every time I reach for the Bible, God's grace is a reality that will flow to me. Every time I put the Bible down and go about my business, God's grace will go with me. This is what I mean by future grace.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“If you are like me, you may have strong longings from time to time for the mighty working of the holy Spirit in your life...But what I have found most often in my own life is the failure to open myself to the full measure of the Spirit's work by believing the promises of God.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“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, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

“God made us alive and secured us in Christ so that he could make us the beneficiaries of everlasting kindness from infinite riches of grace. This is not because we are worthy. Quite the contrary, it is to show the infinite measure of his worth.”
― John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

“Impatience is a form of unbelief. It's what we begin to feel when we start to doubt the wisdom of God's timing or the goodness of God's guidance. It springs up in our hearts when our plan is interrupted or shattered. It may be prompted by a long wait in a checkout line or a sudden blow that knocks out half our dreams. The opposite of impatience is not a glib denial of loss. It's a deepening, ripening, peaceful willingness to wait for God in the unplanned place of obedience, and to walk with God at the unplanned pace of obedience - to wait in his place, and go at his pace.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“When I am anxious about getting old, I battle unbelief with the promise: “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).”
― John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

“When we look back to the death and resurrection of Christ, God shows us in the present the enormity of his love for us, and thus warrants all our confidence in future grace. “God shows [present] his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died [past] for us” (Romans 5:8). Without the death of Christ, there would be no future grace.”
― John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

“I have learned, for instance, that anxiety is a condition of the heart that gives rise to many other sinful states of mind. Think for a moment how many different sinful actions and attitudes come from anxiety. Anxiety about finances can give rise to coveting and greed and hoarding and stealing. Anxiety about succeeding at some task can make you irritable and abrupt and surly. Anxiety about relationships can make you withdrawn and indifferent and uncaring about other people. Anxiety about how someone will respond to you can make you cover over the truth and lie about things. So if anxiety could be conquered, a mortal blow would be struck to many other sins.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“February 21, 1746. “My soul was refreshed and comforted, and I could not but bless God, who had enabled me in some good measure to be faithful in the day past. Oh, how sweet it is to be spent and worn out for God!”4”
― John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

“God is gracious to whom he will be gracious. He is not limited by anyone’s wickedness. He is never trapped by his own wrath. His grace may break out anywhere he pleases. Which is a great encouragement to the worst of sinners to turn from futile hopes and put their trust in future grace.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“The faith that justifies gives rise to lives of obedience—not perfection, but growing holiness.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“The self was never designed to satisfy itself or rely upon itself. It never can be sufficient. We are but in the image of God, not the real thing. We are shadows and echoes. So there will always be an emptiness in the soul that struggles to be satisfied with the resources of self.”
― John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

“The pleasure of pride is like the pleasure of scratching. If there is an itch one does want to scratch; but it is much nicer to have neither the itch nor the scratch. As long as we have the itch of self-regard we shall want the pleasure of self-approval; but the happiest moments are those when we forget our precious selves and have neither but have everything else (God, our fellow humans, animals, the garden and the sky) instead.”
― John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

“He said it even more plainly in Romans 14:23, “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” The absence of faith gives rise only to sinful motives and acts. This may sound extreme. But it is simply a clear expression of Paul’s radical God-centeredness. What does not come from satisfaction in God, and through the guidance of God, and for the glory of God, is godless—it is sin. And no matter how philanthropic or esteemed or costly it may appear among men, it is deficient in the main thing: love for the glory of God. There”
― John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God

“The fruit of love is worked in us through the Spirit 'by hearing with faith.' The Spirit will not bear his fruit in us apart from our faith. Why is this?..The answer seems to be that the Holy Spirit loves to glorify the all-satisfying dependability of Christ and his Word. If the Holy Spirt simply caused acts of love in the human heart without any clear, ongoing causal connection with faith in Christ's promises, then it would not be plain that Christ is honored through love.”
― John Piper, Future Grace

“Being persuaded that Christ and his promises are factual is not by itself saving faith. That is why some professing Christians will be shocked at the last day, when they hear him say, "I never knew you,' even though they protest that he is "Lord, Lord." Believing that Christ and his promises are true, based on a testimony, is a necessary part of faith. But it is not sufficient to turn faith into saving faith.”
― John Piper, Future Grace