Project Serve

“I am not sure that I want my life to make a difference.

I don’t care very much whether I make a lasting difference for the sake of something great. 

I just want people to like me! If people would just like being around me, I would be satisfied. 

I would be satisfied if I could just have a good job with a nice car and long weekends and a few good friends, 

a fun retirement, and a quick and easy death, and no hell (woohoo!) (even without God!) - If I could have all that

I would be satisfied. “

That is in piper’s words - a tragedy in the making. A wasted life.

Reading this scares me because it is what I thought was an ok Christian life. I don’t really aspire to change the world or anything like that even when I’m 22 now. I just hope to you know, be like those normal adults. But here, it is a wasted life. Where is the single passion in life? What is the one thing I know and am willing to live and die for it? Maybe I know, that is the cross. However I am not living it out with the thought of God being glorified in every aspect of my life.

1 Corinthians 2:2 “For i resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified”

Certainly Paul knew many other things. Hope of glory of God, sufferings, faith… But here Paul turned everything back to the cross. The place where all things were bought and redeemed for. This thought. How magnificent! Jesus Christ, bore the wrath, and we stand forgiven at the foot of the cross.

Get degree - bought by Jesus Christ crucified. Get money - bought by Jesus Christ crucified. Mom and Dad - given me by Jesus Christ crucified. Eating subway cold cut trio and mos burger iced tea - bought by Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 

We know we’re not to take things for granted. So what does it mean not to take things for granted. Maybe it is to resolve that I really do not deserve any of what I have. Nothing except the cross i cling. So everything else gained is loss, except the gain that was given - Knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord and Saviour. Awesome marvelous truth. And maybe if i lose everything one day, I can, by the mercy of God like Job cry out blessed be your name.

This is hard teaching. I tremble with fear when i think of the highest standards that Piper is showing me from the word of God. Who can live out such a life? Certainly no one. Then how can i be sure I am living towards that goal, of having a single passion that is to magnify God? To always have the desire towards knowing God and enjoying God. So many phrases but one key idea. The Glory of God- Jesus Christ crucified- living and dying for that. If anything, this study has brought me many trembling teachings so far, yet also with many new questions on how i view things in life, even as i see my brother having a nice family, nice car, nice job, fresh degree…. NO! no more wasted life.. 22 years is enough!

Help me God