When I was in college, I attended a large on-campus Bible study every week. And midway through the semester, we had a guest speaker for an all women’s study night. She told us of a conference that changed her life when she was in our shoes. It was the Passion One Day 2000 Conference. The conference had such a profound impact on her that seventeen years later, she still carried a bracelet from that day and spoke of it with a gleam in her eyes.
What affected her and 40 000 other students was John Piper’s famous sermon, “Boasting Only in the Cross,” a.k.a, the seashell message. I found the sermon through Tim Challies’s Great Sermon Series a little later and watched it for the first time a few weeks ago. It led me to Piper’s book, Don’t Waste Your Life.
Don’t Waste Your Life is inspired by the Seashell message. Piper wrote this book to remind us that as Christians, we are not our own. We belong to God. And we shouldn’t live in vain pursuit of worldly things, but to risk it all for Christ. Even if it cost us dearly because “treasuring life above Christ is a tragedy.”
The message of this book is for all Christians. Our callings may look different, but we are all called to live and even lose our lives for Christ.
Don’t Waste Your Life has ten chapters. In the first two, “My Search for a Single Passion to Live By,” and “Breakthrough—The beauty of Christ, My joy,” Piper shares his story of how God awoke in him a fear and passion not to waste his life.
Then in chapters three to nine, Piper explains how not to waste our lives. The sections are: “Boasting Only in the Cross,” “The Blazing Center of the Glory of God,” “Magnifying Christ through Pain and Death,” “Risk is Right—Better to Lose Your Life Than to Waste It,” “The Goal of Life—Gladly Making Others Glad in God,” “Living to Prove He is More Precious Than Life,” and “Making Much of Christ from 8 to 5.”
The last chapter is, “My Prayer—Let None Say in the End, ‘I’ve Wasted It.’” It’s Piper’s heartfelt prayer for his readers and beyond not to waste their lives.
I enjoyed reading Don’t Waste Your Life. It came at a timely moment in my life when I was unsure of what to do next. Whereas the world and even “Christians” encourages us to live our best lives now, Piper does the opposite. He reminds us that our best life is not this one, but the next. Piper is not trying to sell us a delusional lie that all will be well. He repeatedly emphasized that living for Christ involved sacrifice and suffering.
In the preface, he said, “this is not a book about how to avoid a wounded life, but how to avoid a wasted life.” Piper illustrated that with the lives of the saints who suffered for Jesus’ name and are now in glory.
I loved that Piper illustrates how we can make the most of our lives in secular jobs. Though God calls everyone to ministry, it doesn’t have to be a vocational ministry. And I appreciated Piper showing us how we can make the most of our 9-5 jobs.
Don’t Waste Your Life made me see the futility of a life filled with vain pursuits. And encouraged me to make my life count for Christ. I recommend this book to all Christians, young and old. If you are still breathing, then you can still repent and live for Christ. As Paul said, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
Favorite quotes
You get one pass at life. That’s all. Only one. And the lasting measure of that life is Christ.
Chapter 1: My Search for a Single Passion to Live By
God created me—and you—to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion—namely a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all spheres of life.
Chapter 2: Breakthrough-the Beauty of Christ, My Joy
The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.
Chapter 2: Breakthrough-the Beauty of Christ, My Joy
Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it is, and cleave to it, as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain. What was once foolishness to us—a crucified God—must become our wisdom and our power and our only boast in this world.
Chapter 2: Breakthrough-the Beauty of Christ, My Joy
The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing.
Chapter 3: Boasting Only in thr Cross, the Blazing Center of the Glory of God
But whatever you do find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not waste your life.
Chapter 3: Boasting Only in thr Cross, the Blazing Center of the Glory of God
The way we honor Christ in death is to treasure Jesus above the gift of life, and the way we honor Christ in life is to treasure Jesus above life’s gifts.
Chapter 4: Magnifying Christ Through Pain and Death
God’s glory shines more brightly when he satisfies us in times of loss than when he provides for us in times of plenty…The world is not impressed when Christians get rich and say thanks to God. They are impressed when God is so satisfying that we give our riches away for Christ’s sake and count it gain.
Chapter 4: Magnifying Christ Through Pain and Death
God does not promise enough food for comfort or life—he promises enough so that you can trust him and do his will.
Chapter 5: Risk is Right-Better to Lose Your Life Than to Waste It
Your mind was made to know and love God.
Chapter 6: The Goal of Life-Gladly Making Others Glad in God
The greatest cause in the world is joyfully rescuing people from hell, meeting their earthly needs, making them glad in God, and doing it with a kind serious pleasure that makes Christ look like the Treasure he is.
Chapter 7: Living to Prove He is More Precious Than Life
God is only praised where he is prized. We pay our tribute to him when he is a Treasure to us. You cannot love man or honor God without doing both.
Chapter 9: The Majesty of Christ in Missions and Mercy-A Plea to This Generation
God seldom calls us for an easier life, but always call us to know more of him and drink more deeply of His sustaining grace.
Chapter 9: The Majesty of Christ in Missions and Mercy-A Plea to This Generation
