There is something euphoric about simplicity.

I first unearthed this treasure in the mission field. First, there was waking up cold to the bark of the guard dog. Daily, manual labor squeezes away suburban stress. The ancient, steady way to weave a beautiful blanket revealed more than the same blanket mass produced inside a sweat house. Sweet fruit that dripped from my chin and milk from the cow outside tasted immeasurably more satisfying than waxed and pasteurized grocery products taken home in crackling plastic bags. Pounding dust into my feet as I chased a laughing child was more thrilling than entertaining another kid in front of a television.

It is a concept Thoreau discovered:

“Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion” (Henry David Thoreau, Walden, “Where I lived, And What I Lived For”).

I am discovering what is necessity, establishing boundaries, choosing my burdens and friends. It is newfound freedom and peace that seems to have been lost for a century… may be two. It is no longer contending for the top to sit pacified in wealth and power, but satisfaction with what are our sincere passions. It’s a basic human right–the pursuit of happiness–for all. If only we would find it.

Well spoken words by Paul Washer.

This is a great book I would recommend to anyone wanting to know what the real gospel is rather than what the church has watered down over the past 175 years.

Most people, when they ponder what it means to be loved by God, think of the things that God does for us. John Piper writes that what is most loving about God is not his making much of us, but his enabling us, at great cost to himself, to enjoy making much of him forever.

God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. - 2 Corinthians 4:6

This book is a cry from the heart of John Piper. He is pleading that God himself, as revealed in Christ’s death and resurrection, is the ultimate and greatest gift of the gospel.

None of Christ’s gospel deeds and none of our gospel blessings are good news except as means of seeing and savoring the glory of Christ. Forgiveness is good news because it opens the way to the enjoyment of God himself. Justification is good news because it wins access to the presence and pleasures of God himself. Eternal life is good news because it becomes the everlasting enjoyment of Christ.

All God’s gifts are loving only to the degree that they lead us to God himself. That is what God’s love is: his commitment to do everything necessary (most painfully the death of his only Son) to enthrall us with what is most deeply and durably satisfying—namely, himself.

Saturated with Scripture, centered on the cross, and seriously joyful, this book leads us to satisfaction for the deep hungers of the soul. It touches us at the root of life where practical transformation gets its daily power. It awakens our longing for Christ and opens our eyes to his beauty.

Piper writes for the soul-thirsty who have turned away empty and in desperation from the mirage of methodology. He invites us to slow down and drink from a deeper spring. “This is eternal life,” Jesus said, “that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” This is what makes the gospel—and this book—good news.