Don't Waste Your Life

I just finished reading this book for the second time. Honestly, the first time it just rolled off me and I failed to grasp its message. This time was different. This time the Holy Spirit reached down and graciously opened my eyes to see what God is trying to tell His people through this magnificent little book.Thank God for John Piper, or more accurately, thank God for John's passion for the glory of Christ. I have read several of Piper's books, including Desiring God and Let the Nations Be Glad. At the bottom of all of it, though, is our view of who we are in relation to God. Do we see Him as the almighty, transcendent, holy, eternal, loving, just, merciful, righteous Creator who is worthy of every iota of our attention and admiration? Or do we see Him as something less? Is God there merely to make our lives easy and prosperous and happy? Is He there just to prop up our self-esteem and assist our efforts at self-actualization? The way each person sees God determines how each person will live, and more importantly, for whom he or she will live.There's a huge movement in Christianity today that seeks to convince believers, sadly with a distressing degree of success, that this life is all about us. God is our celestial ATM and the Affirmer of our own self-worth and self-image. Joel Osteen is perhaps the most highly visible example of this right now. It's a "me first" theology, a man-centered pseudo-Christianity which ignores the example and message of Christ to serve, to suffer, to spend and be spent, to die daily, for the good of others and the glory of God. Although I don't follow Osteen, I have found myself living far too much as if I did. That's our default setting as sinful humans -- to love self and the stuff of this life more than we love Christ.Piper sounds a desperately needed wake-up call to the church of Jesus Christ to cast aside our self-serving, self-deceiving, and ultimately self-destructive perspective in favor of a Christ-focused, Christ-treasuring frame of mind and way of life. By default we seek to live for ourselves and make much of ourselves and treasure the things that advance those goals. Piper reminds us that all of this is passing away, and only Christ is eternal. Only Christ is worth treasuring. Only Christ should be the all-consuming focus of our passion. God, through Piper, calls on us to display His worth before a fallen, dying, rebellious world. And He only gives us one life in which to do it. But instead we show the world the worth of our homes, our careers, our hobbies and our retirement portfolios. In this way we waste our lives.To every Christian who has fallen into the trap of treasuring this life as if this was all there is, to every Christian who has gotten caught up in believing that God is here to serve us, to every Christian who has been deceived into thinking that the goal of this life is to be happy with what the temporal world has to offer... READ THIS BOOK. Read it openly, prayerfully, repentently, and humbly. May Piper's message, which is nothing less than God's own message, pierce your heart and call you back to a singular passion to glorify Jesus Christ in every aspect of your life, and in that way avoid the irremediable tragedy of a wasted life. The church desperately needs to hear this, to internalize it, and to act upon it. I cannot recommend this excellent book highly enough.

When I first heard the title from this book, I was intrigued. His flier that was sent further intrigued me. On the one side it said something to the effect of "If you could have a good spouse, good kids, nice car, long weekends, a few good friends, a fun retirement, a quick and easy death and no hell, would you be satisfied?" You turn the flier over and it said "This is a tragedy in the making. Don't waste your life". Wow. You can see where he may be going...What he has put together in this book is truly life changing, and will shatter many of your (and my) preconceived ideas on living a godly life - by using Scripture as his basis in all areas.The first couple of chapters are more biographical/introductory, and how he came to where he is now. Although interesting, he does seemingly wander a bit in dealing with subjective and objective truth and existintilism in his life (the beginning was not my favorite part of the book). Those are phrases that put the majority of Christians to sleep. Do not let that stop you!! By the end of the 2nd chapter, he is going full force, and the book will seriously begin to challenge your ideas on how we are truly to live.He has chapters focused on areas such as constantly looking to the Cross of Christ for our joy and our daily living and bearing fruit and being selfless in the manner that we live, as well as a fun expositional on Philippians 1.However, while all the chapters were very good/excellent, Chapter 7 alone is worth ten times the price of the book. If you don't read anything else in the book, read Chapter 7. This chapter will grab you and radically force you to deal with your life. He quotes 1 Peter 3:15 about "always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within you.." and turns around and asks the question (something like) "do people see hope in your life by the way you live - or is your life so much like the world's that there isn't much of a difference". I don't want to ruin the chapter by revealing all of the information, but he deals with money, finances, Christian living, and media - for starters. He gives wartime examples of living and shows from Scripture how we are to live.For those who may be a bit intimidated by Piper, as a few of his books are more difficult to read for "mainstream" readers, this is also one of his easiest books to read and can be read by virtually anyone. This book is very "practical" and deals with daily issues of life. You will find few better authors today than John Piper, and while this book won't get the reading that a "Prayer of Jabez" or "Purpose Driven Life" will get - which is extremely unfortunate and a shame - those that do read this 190 page book will have transformed lives, and not just a warm fuzzy feeling at the end.Be warned - you will be challenged, and you may not like what he says. However, what he says in the book is what needs to be taught and read today - and most importantly he is right, because his book is based on Scripture. I read a lot of Christian books, and not all of them are as good as I hoped. Trust me - you will NOT be disappointed in this book.

An exemplary collection of life and thought provoking experiences.

A bit more preachy and less inspirational than I was hoping for. Found it a bit old-fashioned. It's more for people who don't know what the Bible teaches about the basics.

Amazing book. Truly amazing.

Really good book, I would recommend you read it.

Excellent!