Read John Piper Devotional 8th October 2023, Sunday Message By DesiringGod Ministry. This Devotional excerpted from “11 Ways God Works for Us”
TOPIC: We Wait, He Works
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From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64:4)
John Piper Devotional 7th October 2023 MESSAGE:
Only a few things have gripped me with greater joy than the truth that God loves to show his God-ness by working for me, and that his working for me is always before and under and in any working I do for him.
At first it may sound arrogant of us, and belittling to God, to say that he works for us. But that’s only because of the connotation that I am an employer and God needs a job. That’s not the connotation when the Bible talks about God’s working for us. That’s not at all in Isaiah’s mind when he says, God “works for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4).
The proper connotation of saying God works for me is that I am bankrupt and need a bailout. I am weak and need someone strong. I am endangered and need a protector. I am foolish and need someone wise. I am lost and need a Rescuer.
God works for me means I can’t do the work. I am utterly in need of help.
And this glorifies God not me. The Giver gets the glory. The Powerful One gets the praise.
Listen to the way the Bible talks about God working for you, and be freed from the burden of bearing your own load. Let him do that work.
- “No eye has seen a God besides you, who works for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4).
- God is not “served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25).
- “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
- “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).
- “If I were hungry, I would not tell you. . . . Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Psalm 50:12, 15).
- “To your old age . . . I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (Isaiah 46:4).
- “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).
- “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1).
- “Whoever serves, [let him serve] by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified” (1 Peter 4:11).
- “Work out your own salvation . . . for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work” (Philippians 2:12–13).
- “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6).
John Piper was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Bill and Ruth Piper January 11, 1946. When John and his older sister were still small, the family moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where John spent his growing-up years. His father was an itinerant evangelist, and his mother died in 1974 in a bus accident while visiting Israel.
In 1980, sensing an irresistible call of the Lord to preach, John became the senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he ministered for almost 33 years.
Desiring God began inauspiciously in 1994 when John handed off the church’s tape ministry to his assistant, Jon Bloom.
What started with tapes and John’s books, Desiring God has blossomed into an international web ministry with 14,000+ free resources and 3.5+million monthly users. Today, John serves as lead teacher for the ministry.
READ MORE TOPICS: OPEN HEAVENS, OUR DAILY BREAD, IN TOUCH, SEEDS OF DESTINY, STREAMS OF JOY, JOEL OSTEEN, MOUNTAIN TOP LIFE, DCLM DAILY MANNA, UCB WORD FOR TODAY
