Don't Waste Your Life

"You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."

1 Corinthians 6:19

     I sit down to review Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper...

     How on earth is one supposed to review a book that is both fathoms deep and extremely practical in a manner that won't make a hash of it all? I have never been much good at reviewing things because I am no good at logic or logical thought processes. But I know that God spoke to me through reading this book and I know it's a book that every single one of you (yes, even you friends who wandered over from the link on Facebook and don't really feel like reading a book review) NEEDS to read. Per my recent fascination with underlining favorite bits in books, each time I sat down with this book, I did so with pen in hand. I am so glad I did--there was scarcely a page I didn't mark up in some fashion.

    This book is just that good.

     He starts out with the quotation from 1 Corinthians above and immediately jumps in:

  "If you are a Christian, you are not your own. Christ has bought you at the prince of his own death. You now belong doubly to God: He made you, and he bought you.  That means your life is not your own. IT is God's. Therefore, the Bible says, 'Glorify God in your body.' God made you for this. He bought you for this. This is the meaning of your life."

     Wham.

     A page later: "It was becoming clearer and clearer that if I wanted to come to the end of my life and not say, 'I've wasted it!' then I would need to press all the way in, and all the way up, to the ultimate purpose of god and join him in it. If my life was to have a single, all-satisfying, unifying passion, it would have to be God's passion. And...God's passion was the display of his own glory and the delight of my heart."

 And this is only the beginning of one of the most revolutionary books I've ever read. Revolutionary not because John Piper is making up a new system of "How to Live a Full Life". Revolutionary because he simply digs into God's word and pulls out the thing that has been lying there forever: God's passion. And when you get a sense of that passion and what it means, your life will never be the same again. My life can never be the same again. I suppose the thrust of the book can be simplified in Piper's words on page 38:

"God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of , but to make much of him in every part of our lives."

    I'm finding it hard to put into words how much the message of this book excites me. I am gripped with a passion to not waste my life. I want to be the person who lives recklessly for Christ. A person who sees the cost, knows the cost, and delights in paying that price so she can bring glory to the One who rescued her soul from death.
       "Won't it hurt?" you might ask. Oh, I know it will sometimes. I might even die for living recklessly in pursuit of His glory. But here again, Piper addresses the fundamental misunderstanding that causes so many people to waste their precious, short lives:

"Death is a threat to the degree that it frustrates your main goals. Death is fearful to the degree that it threatens to rob you of what you treasure most....(when we treasure) Christ most, (our) goal (is) to magnify Christ. And (we see) death not as a frustration of that goal but as an occasion for its fulfillment." 

     When you are living for any other reason than to bring glory to God, death is terrifying. But isn't that quote beautiful? THIS is why Christians can be joyful in the face of any and every terror. THIS is the glorious mystery of Christ! Living is Christ. Dying is gain. In every situation we are more than conquerors through His mercy and grace.
     I wish I could get you to see the amazing thing this ultimate goal is: how the passion for it shines so brilliant a light over history, current events, and the world that all other voices are drowned. I really can't describe it...just read this book. It will change the most mundane task into a service of praise. It will cause you to risk all because you know the loss of each thing for Jesus' sake only serves to show the world how highly we value him. It will give you a passion for telling everyone else of the Glorious Lord, and a raging hunger to be more like him. I can't help but think of the words to "Let Your Kingdom Come":

"Your glorious cause, Oh God,

Engages our hearts

May Jesus Christ be known

wherever we are.

We ask not for ourselves

But for your renown.

The cross has saved us so we pray:

'Your kingdom come.'

Let your kingdom come

Let your will be done

So that everyone might know your name.

Let your song be heard

Everywhere on earth

Till your sovereign work on earth is done

Let your kingdom come!

Give us your strength, O God,

And courage to those who speak

Perform your wondrous deeds

Through those who are weak.

Lord, use us as you want,

Whatever the test.

By grace we'll preach your Gospel

Till our dying breath.

Read this book. It's going to change you into something different, I warn you. You'll never be able to view your life the same way. You'll never want to view it the same way. My heart is full and still while at the same time beating like a caged bird to be allowed to dart forth and set the minds of men ablaze to His glory. I can say little but this:
Oh, Jesus, let me live and fight and die in the pursuit of Your glory! This is all I want. This is the service I am giving my life to. Let everything I do be to this end. Because your love is better than life, my lips will praise you. Jesus, please, let me do this: let me live recklessly for Your name. Give me the courage and the tenacity, and use me as your image-bearer in the way your created me to live this precious, heart-beat life.
Piper rightly says "a life devoted to making much of Christ is costly." But it's a beautiful cost, and one I am going to fight for night and day, moment by moment, from now till His kingdom comes. Will you give Him your life--quite literally--so when the end has come you can look back and know it was a life well-spent?

"And they sang a new song, saying, 'Worthy are you (O Christ) to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.' " -Revelation 5:9-10