3 Lessons I’ve Learnt from John Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life”
Only one life, twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
In July 2012, I had just finished my internship in one of the most sort after IT firms in Nigeria. I left there battling with an internal struggle, questioning if I still wanted to go down the career path I had mapped ou tin IT Networking. I hustled to get into that company, after 9 months of internship I left with more knowledge and experience than I hoped for but with a new burden in my heart. “Am I just here on earth to work, get my salary and pay bills? Is there more to?”.
Then I came across John Piper’s classic sermon, God Is Most Gloried In Us When We Are Most Satisfied in Him and my life never remained the same. I was already introduced to him via CHH artists like Lecrae, Tedashii, Trip Lee and Shai Linne but I’d never really consumed his work until then. My life has radically changed since I read that sermon almost 5 years ago.
Don’t Waste Your Life was first published in 2003 but I think he’d already preached on the same topic at Passion Conference in the year 2000. The gems in this book are timeless and it’s global impact is immeasurable. Grammy Award winning rapper Lecrae has a song with the same title inspired by the book. In fact, Lecrae and his label mates toured the United States spreading the message of the book by John Piper. How cool is that
I’m currently doing a group study on the book with my youth group. So this has made me scour the web for all things related to DWYL, from sermons on youtube to articles written by John Piper on the topic. I thought I’ll share what I’ve learnt so far from my study.
1. We Don’t Define our Existence
Existentialism tells us that we must be the architects of our lives. That we should define our essence from within. That because we exist we are essential. Therefore, do art thou wilt. This is a tragedy! Why? Because we were made by God, we were made in His image. We were made in His essence. Therefore, we exist because God has made us essential. Only when we know our Maker will we know what we are made for.
All that looks like reality to us is dependent on God. There is creation and Creator, nothing more. And creation gets all its mean- ing and purpose from God. — Chapter One, Don’t Waste Your Life
2. YOLO, Don’t Waste It
The existentialists tell us we only have one life so we should do as we please. Existentialists exalt pleasure and tell us to only live in the moment. Well, they are right in one thing: we only live once. But the Christian knows better, you can live once or die twice OR die once and live twice. The Christian knows that what we do now echoes in eternity. So we have to do all that we’ve been called to do, all that we’ve been asked to do by God, in this life. We should realise that there’s more to life than marriage, work, education etc. When we realise that our life is a gift and time is a gift from our Maker, God, we will live intentionally, deliberately, passionately.
You only live once so you should have a single passion and chase it with all that you are and all that you have. But the key to finding our passion is finding and knowing who made is feel the need to be passionate, God.
Only one life, twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
3. God Is Most Gloried In Us, When We Are Most Satisfied In Him
Psychologist, Abraham Mazlow, proposed his ‘Theory of Need’ in 1943 ranking Man’s need with Self-Actualisation at the top of this list followed by Esteem, Love, Safety and Physiological needs. His theory has been criticised by some but whether you agree with the order of his theory or not, you’ll admit that Man has needs and his needs must be met or else he feels…well, less of himself or rather he feels incomplete. It seems our needs can never be fully satisfied, we are insatiable beings.
C. S Lewis’ quote from his classic book Mere Christianity guides us in resolving this issue. He wrote, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world”. John Piper also writing to solve this problem, coined the term Christian Hedonism, he defines it as God being most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him.
There is no conflict in our exalting God, in glorifying Him fully because our happiness and joy lies in that.
GOD IS MOST GLORIED IN US WHEN WE ARE MOST SATISFIED IN HIM
Live joyfully, don’t waste your life!
