Let the Nations Be Glad

I've begun reading John Piper's book Let the Nations Be Glad! Piper usually represents a really dense read, something that takes me a while to muddle through. I have no delusions that this book won't be that, but let me tell you why I'm really excited about it.

Piper is unapologetically Calvinist, but he makes some very good points about the supremacy of God and the need for authentic, passionate worship. In the first paragraph he states,

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. His premise is that if people would worship rightly, missions would be unnecessary. If Christians would fulfill their duty as believers, worshipping God in his magnificence, Missions would not be needed. Missions is an outflow of our hearts of worship. If we truly love God, his love will roll off our tongues with ease. If we are truly passionate about God we won't lack the drive to tell others about him.

When true love, true passion does not exist, neither does true missions. If we don't truly love God and are passionate about him, missions is just another job, a way to earn a living (albeit not always a good one).

I realize that some people get bent out of shape at the mention of Calvinism and I am not one to blindly follow anyone, I think that we need to look at individual ideas and not a complete systematic theology. There are individual points in Calvinism that are absolutely biblical and some that make me cringe, but the same is true for all boxes we unceremoniously stuff God into (sometimes we do use ceremony, too).

That being said, I long to dive head-first into a world where God is proclaimed for who he really is, where he is ultimate and I am minuscule. I want my love for God to flow effortlessly from me, meaning that I must love God more than I do right now. Let the nations be glad because God is God. He is worthy of our praise