John Piper Quotes

Sin is what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God.

I used to say, 'There is a God-shaped hole in me.' For a long time I stressed the absence, the hole. Now I find it is the shape which has become more important.

I don't know anyone who doesn't have an empty spot at the center of him, which must be filled in order to be really happy. That spot, like it or not, is reserved for God.

If you don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great.

God has so made man's heart that nothing can ever fill it but God himself.

Nothing makes God more supreme and more central in worship than when a people are utterly persuaded that nothing - not money or prestige or leisure or family or job or health or sports or toys or friends - nothing is going to bring satisfaction to their sinful, guilty, aching hearts besides God.

Sin is what you do when you are not satisfied in God.

All people desire what they believe will make them happy. If a person is not full of desire for God, we can only conclude that he is engaged with another happiness.

O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

If God gave the soul his whole creation she would not be filled thereby but only with himself.

Naught but God Can satisfy the soul.

I don't want to be empty on the inside.

The fundamental loss of a desire for God is the heart of original sin.

Your unhappiness is not due to your want of a fortune or high position or fame or sufficient vitamins. It is due not to a want of something outside of you, but to a want of something inside you. You were made for perfect happiness. No wonder everything short of God disappoints you.

The way of the Lord is the way of happiness. ‘Wickedness never was happiness’ [Alma 41:10]. Transgression never was happiness. Sin never was happiness. Disobedience never was happiness. The way of happiness is following the way of the Lord. I believe this with all my heart.

Life is islands of ecstasy in an ocean of ennui, and after the age of thirty land is seldom seen.

Everybody's heart is like a cup. They stumble from place to place and person to person, trying to get them filled. They get cracked, those cups, and even broken. Some people throw them away, thinking that it will stop the pain. Poor fools. Nobody can fill a cup but Almighty God Himself. Nobody.

He who desires nothing but God is rich and happy.

There is only One Being who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

I have committed the worst of sins one can commit... I have not been happy.

If you aren't hungry for God, you are full of yourself.

Wise leaders should have known that the human heart cannot exist in a vacuum. If Christians are forbidden to enjoy the wine of the Spirit they will turn to the wine of the flesh....Christ died for our hearts and the Holy Spirit wants to come and satisfy them.

The Christian is the most contented man in the world, but he is the least contented with the world.

Down inside we have a longing for God-what Pascal called "the vacuum which God left behind.

Unhappiness on earth cultivates a hunger for heaven. By gracing us with a deep dissatisfaction, God holds our attention.