Response to Sermon from John Piper

First of all I want to start this off with saying how amazing of a speaker John Piper is. The whole entire time we watched the sermon, I kept asking myself, "What in the world do I know him from??" Well I actually almost bought his whole series on Romans which takes apart Romans verse by verse and analyzes it. I actually did buy a book written by him called "When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy". It was on this Christian recommended book list my good friend made, however I'm still working on reading some of the others he recommended! I've also browsed around his website, "desiringgod.org". No wonder he sounded so familiar! :) His message really was phenomenal though. I loved all the points he made about being a missionary. It really made me start to think about why it is so important for me to be a missionary. It made me think about how much I want to go on mission trips and spread the Word to others. One thing that his lesson made me think about is how much we want or demand of God. Its like if we don't get exactly what we prayed for, we get mad at God! Or we constantly expect Him to do things. I think its the same way with what we think about for our future. We just want God to be like a mission impossible movie. We want Him to come jump out of a helicopter, glide down to earth, and tell us exactly what our mission is. I used to wonder all the time.. "I just wish I knew what God's will for my life was". But then I realized I was crazy for thinking that and not doing anything! God gave us the bible to show us our will. 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7 and 5:16-17 says, " It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; ⁴that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life....Be joyful always: Pray continuously." If we live according to this standard then we will know a lot more about God's direction for us. If we live outside of this we will be discouraged and lost. If we live inside of this we will receive more peace and joy and comfort. Our purpose is found in the WORD, not in the world. It is not found in how many facebook friends we have, or by how many text messages you get in a day. The world will try to get you to find purpose in the world. I think that so often we mistake God from how amazing he really is! We think that he is some GENIE or something! We are not his robots!! How many times have you done something silly like saying, "okay God I'm going to flip to something in the Bible and whatever page I land on is what you want me to read". Or we are driving and say, okay Lord when I get over to this hill Im going to hit a stop light, if it is a green light, you want me to date this girl/boy. Or if its red, that means I shouldn't date them!! The right decision 100 percent of the time is praying and getting in God's world. If God gave us all the sings then there would be no reason to have faith! So God's plan for me is that I LIVE my life for Him! When I die I pray that I hear the words, "Well done my good and faithful servant." The only way I can accomplish that is living a live devoted to my God and ALL out for Him!