5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Piper tends to repeat himself, but his content is solid and challenging, May 27, 2010
This review is from: Don't Waste Your Life (Group Study Edition) (Paperback)
This book suffers from Piper's tendency to fill 200 pages when 30 would have illustrated his points sufficiently, but the points in Don't Waste Your Life are terrific, and it's well worth the read. Mostly, the book challenges the reader again and again to live deliberately for God's glory instead of wasting life pursuing anything else. I love Piper's exhaustive Biblical citations and his presentation of rarely referenced milestones in the history of international missions. I also love that Piper clarifies that living deliberately in a "normal" job is no more or less valuable than physically traveling to unreached people groups. Still, there were many times that I read a passage, paused to reflect, and realized that I could not pinpoint anything that had been added to the discussion, so I can't rate the book higher than 3 stars. If you're up for a challenging read, though, one that will confront you repeatedly with the question of whether or not you're wasting your life, I recommend this book.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Find Your Purpose and Live It, June 9, 2010
This review is from: Don't Waste Your Life (Group Study Edition) (Paperback)
Every half-awake human being desires to know his purpose and live without regret. Yet most, believers and unbelievers, fail to rightly apprehend their true purpose and miss the meaning of life as they are in danger of wasting their time on the earth. In "Don't Waste Your Life," Pastor John Piper helps you discover how:
- Not to squander the time you have on trifling diversions
- Not to merely aim for security, ease, and gratification
- Find true hope, joy, and lasting fulfillment in Christ and His purpose.
"Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it" (Jesus).
Lewis posed this dialogue: "And what does it amount to?" said Satan, with his evil chuckle. "Nothing at all. You gain nothing: you always come out where you went in. For a million years the race has gone on monotonously propagating itself and monotonously re-performing this dull nonsense to what end?"
This is an outstanding resource for personal devotion and with the DVD makes for a fine group study.
And may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, that you may overflow with hope through the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13).
There Are Moral Absolutes: How to Be Absolutely Sure That Christianity Alone Supplies
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Two important points, May 10, 2011
This review is from: Don't Waste Your Life (Group Study Edition) (Paperback)
Don't Waste Your Life
There are two main points that I get from this book. One, the importance of sharing the gospel in places where it has never been heard. Two the importance of sharing our wealth with people who are in desperate need of it. A book that makes one of these points, without making the other, is suspect. Piper does a good job on both points. Other important points are made, especially about the Cross, but they are made to reinforce these first two points.
Chapter 1, My Search for a Single Passion to Live By, and Chapter 2, Breakthrough - the Beauty of Christ, My Joy, are autobiographical, telling of John Piper's desire to not waste his life, what that means, and the answer he found. Piper mentions some of the influential people and books that he encountered. His favorite is Jonathan Edwards.
Chapter 3 is Boasting Only in the Cross. You might think it would give a lot of theology of the Cross. It is more personal than that. One point it makes is that everything I think or do should be centered on the Cross. A second point is that when we were converted (or regenerated), our old self died, crucified, and we took on a new self. I think everything in the chapter is written to make one of these two points. Page 48, "One thing matters: Know Christ, and gain Christ. Everything is rubbish in comparison to this."
I read some of the favorable and unfavorable reviews of this book. K. Willis (1 star review) and Simon W (2 star review) say that Piper neglects the Holy Spirit in the book. The Trinity is very challenging, more challenging than many will admit. Many people identify with one Person of the Trinity more than the other two. Piper emphasizes Jesus. I don't have a problem with him not mentioning the Holy Spirit much in this book.
David T (2 star review) and aspiringtraveler1792 (2 star review) say the book is repetitive, not saying much more that what you can infer from the book's title. I can see why they say that. The book is gentle in the points it makes, not hard-hitting punches. I read this book concurrently with reading David Platt's Radical, which has a similar theme, to encourage evangelism. Radical is full of hard-hitting punches and makes some theological statements that some will not agree with. Piper acknowledges that some people should go on foreign missions, some should stay on the home front and support the missionaries. I prefer Don't Waste Your Life over Radical, which was written later. But some will prefer Radical.
The book bounces around some and sometimes the reader may not see how it is all connected. There are many 1-2 page segments that tell some facet of the general topic of a chapter. I recommend that you read the book slowly and carefully, meditating on it. It is not a long book, you can afford to take your time with it.
Working for the cause of Jesus is compared to war. Not just a sentimental, cliché, or vague comparison, like the war on poverty or the war on drugs. He mentions some of the most bloody fighting of World War II, the battle for Iwo Jima. He sees the enormous sacrifices that people made for World War II, both on the home front and on the front line, and wants Christians to make enormous sacrifices for Jesus.
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