A Godward Heart: Treasuring the God Who Loves You by John Piper

John Piper is an amazingly talented preacher, teacher and author. He has written many books to bring people to a deeper knowledge and relationship with God. His latest book is titled: A Godward Heart: Treasuring The God Who Loves You. This book contains “50 Meditations For Your Journey”. Some meditations in this book were very thought-provoking and insightful. Others seemed to be a random collection of thoughts that cover a variety of topics including such issues as suffering, voting, slavery, tweeting, nudity, Abraham Lincoln, ( which was the only down fall of the book).
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A Godward Heart

Treasuring the God Who Loves You

Written by John Piper
About the Author

John Piper JOHN PIPER is founder and teacher of DesiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For thirty-three years he served as pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. He is the author of more than fifty books, including the contemporary classic, Desiring God. He and his wife, Noel, have five children and twelve grandchildren.

Each chapter is very short (approximately 3-4 pages) and many of the chapters would be a great devotional. Some of the exceptional sections in this book included: I read a chapter before I went to sleep each night! Yes, I could have read this book in a few days, but I took longer to contemplate the deep Biblical truths that are not always easy to grasp.

Chapter 4 – Although many might claim that it was cruel of Jesus to let Lazarus die and put Mary and Martha through grief, Jesus’ goal was much bigger. It was to magnify the glory of God through that experience. Most people think that love is whatever puts human value and human well-being at the center. "Love is doing whatever you need to do, even to the point of dying on the cross, to help people see and savor the glory of God forever and ever." Regarding Paul's thorn, God told him that it was more loving for Paul to value the glory of His power than it was for Him to take away his thorn. God's love is not defined by what brings them relief or what they want but what brings out the glory of God in your life. That’s a powerful thought!