Here's the review:
The theme of this book is really self-explanatory. Piper is pleading with us to live a life that is not wasted. But what does that actually mean?
Piper, whose own father was a fiery preacher and evangelist, tells the story that his father passionately told him as a boy of a man converted in his old age.
He was hard and resistant. But this time, for some reason, he showed up at church when my father was preaching. At the end of the service, during a hymn, to everyone’s amazement he came and took my father’s hand. They sat down together on the front pew of the church as the people were dismissed. God opened his heart to the Gospel of Christ, and he was saved from his sins and given eternal life. But that didn’t stop him from sobbing and saying, as the tears ran down his wrinkled face – and what an impact it made on me to hear my father say this through his own tears – “I’ve wasted it! I’ve wasted it!” (pg 12)
So what does it mean to not waste your life?
As Piper relives his own youth in the first two chapters and tells of the years he personally struggled with the question what it meant to make the most of his life, he recalls a story from Readers Digest in 1998…
…which tells of a couple who took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect shells. At first when I read it I though it might be a joke. A spoof on the American dream. But it wasn’t. Tragically, this was the dream. Come to the end of your life – your one and only precious, God-given life – and let the greatest work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgement: “Look Lord. See my shells.” That is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. Over against that, I put my protest: Don’t buy it. Don’t waste your life. (pg 46)
Piper urges us to not live for what might be the ‘Aussie dreams’ but to recognise what we were made for and in chapter 3 points us back to the burning centre of God’s glory – that is the cross. He states that ‘A cross-centred, cross-exalting, cross-saturated life is a God-glorifying life – the only God glorifying life. All are others are wasted.
Therefore every enjoyment in this life and the next that is not idolatry is a tribute to the infinite value of the cross of Christ – the burning centre of the glory of God. A thus a cross-centred, cross-exalting, cross-saturated life is a God-glorifying life – the only God-glorifying life. All others are wasted. (pg 59)
Chapters 4-7 of the book refer to the teaching and letters of Paul. Piper expounds what Paul writes from prison in Philippians 1:20-21’…it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honoured in my body, whether by life or death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’ (ESV)
Chapter 8 looks at how these teachings are applied to our lives now living in the secular world. He shows us how to make much of Christ through our secular work through:
- relationships
- creativity and industry
- the ways we conduct ourselves
- focussing on the helpfulness of our work rather than financial rewards
- the right uses of our money
- a love of sharing the gospel
He finally challenges us in chapter 9 to consider mission and the ways that we can support those in mission work.
The book is accompanied by a study guide and is fabulous for individual, one-to-one and small group study. It also has website with helpful podcasts, blogs and downloads.
Finally, Piper finishes with a prayer for himself, Christians and those who are out of Christ. It concludes
Take your honoured place, O Christ, as the all-satisfying Treasure of the world. With trembling hands before the throne of God, and utterly dependent of your grace, we lift our voice and make this solemn vow: As God lives, and is all I ever need, I will not waste my life…
…through Jesus Christ, Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment