Wartime Lifestyle

About 3 years ago I began reading a book by John Piper called "Don't Waste Your Life." I starting reading it and got to about the 4th chapter, then I quit. A few months later I saw it on my bookshelf and decided to pick it up to read. Once again, I got to about the 4th chapter and I quit.

I'm really not sure why I had so much trouble getting into this book. It seems ironic that a book that is supposed to tell me how not to waste my life was getting put on the back burner so I could pursue other things in my life.

Fortunately my church is getting ready to start a video series on Sunday nights on "The Blazing Center" an 8-session group teaching series by John Piper on the Soul-satisfying Supremacy of God in All Things. Also, my wife and I are going to the Resolved Conference (http://www.resolved.org/) in Palm Springs later this week where John Piper will be one of the featured speakers. So, with so much Piper's teaching facing me in the near future, I thought it was a good time to pick back up the "Don't Waste Your Life" book for a third time.

This time, the third time was the charm.

I've not yet finished the book, but I'm well on my way. I just completed the 7th chapter and it was superb. This is a challenging book. The main argument is to warn you not to get caught up in a life that counts for nothing. But to live and die boasting in the cross of Christ and making the glory of God your singular passion.

In chapter 7 titled, "Living to Prove He is More Precious Than Life", Piper challenges the reader to:

"make sacrifical life choices rooted in the assurance that magnifying Christ through generosity and mercy is more satisfying than selfishness. If we walk away from risk to keep ourselves safe and solvent, we will waste our lives. This chapter is about the kind of lifestyle that may keep that from happening."

Later in the chapter, Piper uses the term "wartime lifestyle." He explains why:

"Sometimes I use the phrase "wartime lifestyle" or "wartime mind-set." The phrase is helpful - but also lopsided. For me it is mainly helpful. It tells me that there is a war going on in the world between Christ and Satan, truth and falsehood, belief and unbelief. It tells me that there are weapons to be funded and used, but that these weapons are not swords or guns or bombs but the Gospel and prayer and self-sacrificing love (2 Corinthians 10:3-5) And it tells me that the stakes of this conflict are higher than any other war in history; they are eternal and infinite: heaven or hell, eternal joy or eternal torment (Matthew 25:46).
I need to hear this message again and again, because I drift into a peacetime mind-set as certainly as rain falls down and flames go up. I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start to call earth "home." Before you know it, I am calling luxuries "needs" and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin to forget the war. I don't think much about people perishing. Missions and unreached peoples drop out of my mind. I stop dreaming about the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mindset that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced me again and again toward a wartime mind-set."

This is an excellent book and one that I highly recommend.