A Little Piper for Tonight...

ok...i know it's been a LONG time since my last post. not sure i'm really going to try and 'catch' people up on what's been going on in life. i'm just going to make another starting point. don't really know what i want to write about first...so i guess i'm gonna start off with what i'm reading and see if anything develops from there.

well...John Piper is an author that has been highly recommended to me by a couple of people. for christmas i recieved his newest book "When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy." at first the title kind of threw me. after all, who wants to buy a book about times when you don't desire God - when things just get "too" tough? afterall, to buy the book is to admit that those times may come and no christian (at least no christian i know) wants to look fickle. anyways, Piper talks about 'joy' and why we are called to fight for it - rejoice in the Lord always (yeah - that "always" part...gets me once and a while). "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." ok...forget it...i'm not going to try and explain this whole thing...i'm going to include a (possibly long - but good) excerpt from what i've been reading in this book lately....

Chapter 3 - "The Call to Fight for Joy in God: Taking God's Demand for Delight Seriously"
"One of the reasons that today in the Western church our joy is so fragile and thin is that this truth is so little understood - the truth, namely, that eternal life is laid hold of only by a persevering fight for the joy of faith. Joy will not be rugged and durable and deep through suffering where there is not resolve to fight for it. But today, by and large, there is a devil-may-care, cavalier, superficial attitude toward the ongoing, daily intensity of personal joy in Christ, because people do not believe that their eternal life depends on it.
The last two hundred years has seen an almost incredible devaluation of the fight for joy. We have moved a hundred miles from Pilgrim's Progress where Christian labors and struggles and fights all his life "for the joy that was set before him" (Heb 12:2) in the Celestial City. Oh how different is the biblical view of the Christian life than the one prevalent in the Western church. It is an earnest warfare from beginning to end, and the war is to defend and strengthen the fruit-bearing fields of joy in God.
James 1:12 says, "Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him." The person who will receive the crown of eternal life is the person who successfully endures trial-that is, the person who fights for joy in the pain of loss and gets the vicory over the unbelief of anger and bitterness and discouragement.
Revelation 2:10 says to those who are being thrown in prison for their faith, "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life." This is very different from the mood of Western Christianity. Here something infinite and eternal hangs on whether these Christians hold fast to the joy of faith while in prison. But today worship sevices, Bible studies, prayer meetings, and fellowship gathering in many churches do not have a spirit of earnestness and intensity and fervor and depth because people do not really believe that anything significant is at stake in the fight for joy---least of all their eternal life. The all-important priority seems to be cheerfulness, even jollity.
Oh, that the church would waken to the warfare we are in and feel the urgency of the fight for joy. This is how we hold fast to eternal life, "Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life" (1Timothy 6:12). Faith has in it the taste of joy in the glory of Christ. Therefore the good fight of faith is the fight for joy. "

----ok...i know it's getting long...but we're getting to the good stuff (eventhough it's ALL good stuff)....hang in there...it'll be worth it.....

"A Good Fight"
"It will help us fight for joy if we realize why Paul calls it a good fight. First, it is a good fight because the enemy of our joy is evil. The enemy is unbelief, and the satanic forces behind it, and the sins that come from it. When you set yourself to combat the forces that try to make you delight in yourself or your accomplishments or your possessions more than in God, you oppose a very evil enemy. Therefore it is a good fight.
Second, it is a good fight because we are not left to our own strength in the fight. If we were, as Martin Luther says, "Our striving would be losing." In other words, when a child of God fights for joy in God, God himself is the one behind that struggle, giving the will and the power to defeat the enemy of joy (Phil. 2:12-13). We are not left to ourselves to sustain the joy of faith. God fights for us and in us. Therefore the fight of faith is a good fight.
Third, it is a good fight because it is not a struggle to carry a burden, but a struggle to let a burden be carried for us. The life of joy in God is not a burdened life. It is an unburdened life. The fight for joy is the struggle to trust God with the burdens of life. It's a fight for freedom from worry. It's a fight for hope and peace and joy, which are all threatened by unbelief and doubt about God's promises. And since greedom and hope and peace and joy are good, the fight to preserve them is a good fight.
Fourth, the fight of faith is good because, unlike most fights, it does not involve self-exaltation but self-humbling. Most fighting is not good because it is a proud attempt to prove our own strength at someone else's expense. But the fight for you is just the opposite. It's a way of saying that we are weak and desperately need the mercy of God. By nature we do not like to admit our helplessness. We do not like to say, "Apart from Christ I can do nothing--I can not even rejoice" (see John 15:5). But the very essence of faith is the admission of our sinful helplessness in the quest for eternal joy, and looking away from ourselves to God through Christ for the help and the joy that is in him alone. This kind of humility is good. Therefore the fight for joy is a good fight.
Fifth, the fight for joy is good because by it God is greatly glorified. When we devote ourselves to resist the idolatrous power of every craving, every desire, every pleasure that is not God, then God is exalted as the superior Treasure of our lives. Fighting against all alien joy shows that we know the infinite worth of God. Therefore the fight for joy is a good fight.
At the end of his life Paul said, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2Timothy 4:7). Keeping the faith for a lifetime is the result of fighting the good fight for a lifetime. And if faith includes at least the taste of joy in the glory of Christ, then this life-long fight is a fight for joy--a very good fight."

well...the whole deal about joy in ALL circumstances and the struggle to let burdens go are the two parts of that excerpt that have been kickin my butt lately......comments????

ok...my fingers are cramped from typing that long time....i'm out for a little bit....but i have SO much more to say (*shocker! i know ;)
-Jenn