Articles by Desiring God

Scott Hubbard | All biblical doctrine is important, but not all biblical doctrine is equally important. So how do we discern which doctrines should divide us?

Jon Bloom | Unity is often harder in our relationships and churches because we assume it should be easy.

Greg Morse | The deepest, fullest, most vibrant unity is found in embracing, not a few favorite verses, but everything God has said in his word.

David Mathis | As the United States celebrates 246 years of independence, and Americans newly remember the ten-dollar founding father, what lessons might we learn from the rise, fall, and redemption of a prodigal son?

Marshall Segal | Deacons are not only handy, administrative, or good at meeting needs. They are also holy, humble, and unusually sacrificial. Deacons are spiritual giants who bow low.

Jon Bloom | In his faithfulness, God promises not only that he will deliver us from affliction, but that we will do something good through the affliction.

Marshall Segal | The moments when marriage feels most challenging are often the moments with the most potential to say something profound about Jesus.

David Mathis | Today marks 25 years since the first Harry Potter book released. What Christian lessons might we take away from the bestselling series?

Greg Morse | Where reverence withers, worship suffers.

Joe Rigney | Being baptized into the church means being immersed in its mission. The old has passed and a new life now begins.

Scott Hubbard | Satan knows the power of words — he’s been undoing souls with them from the beginning. And wherever Christ is faithfully taught, the devil is undone by them.

Jon Bloom | If God’s answer to your prayers hurts, don’t assume he doesn’t love you. Assume his love is working something good you cannot now see.

Greg Morse | Want to measure your growth in grace? Consider how deeply you long for heaven.

Marshall Segal | The friends we need will not always be the friends we want. They’ll often be the brotherly storm that wakes us back up to God.

Joe Rigney | The best readers gladly observe the Golden Rule: they read others as they would want to be read.

Jon Bloom | The hardest part of many trials is how far away God can feel. But he’s not far at all, and if we trust him, he will, in time, flood our dark nights with light.

Greg Morse | If a pitiless culture will not mourn for the missing, she will.

Scott Hubbard | On Pentecost 1862, some five thousand men and women, many of them former cannibals, gathered in the South Pacific to sing the hymn “Jesus Shall Reign.”

Marshall Segal | Those who have been invited into heaven become people who love to open their front doors. They know that ordinary hospitality is often how the lost are found.

David Mathis | He didn’t just give the Great Commission; he lived the Great Commission. What might we learn from Jesus’s own life about what it means to “make disciples”?

Jon Bloom | False teachers may look like sheep, talk like sheep, and even act like sheep for a time. But eventually, they will show themselves to be the wolves they are.

Greg Morse | Some imagine they would believe in God if he would simply write his message in the clouds. But what if he actually did?

Scott Hubbard | Small groups may feel unremarkable, but again and again, God has struck revival with small matches. Here are four marks of the small but daring community.

Marshall Segal | No matter what situation you’re in, the psalms know what you feel. And the psalms can help you feel as you ought.

David Mathis | An astounding and holy contest runs through the pages of Scripture, as the Father and Son seek to “outdo one another in showing honor.”

Joe Rigney | Our own sense of reality is not the same as reality itself. And simply recognizing that distinction can be the first step toward aligning our thoughts and emotions with God’s word.

Greg Morse | Jesus could love people like he did because he did not fear them like we do.

Scott Hubbard | Sometimes, God seems to be answering a longtime prayer or fulfilling a deep desire — until it all crumbles before our face. How do we receive such painful turns from the hand of God?

Marshall Segal | What makes the church a pillar and buttress of the truth? She holds up and lives out what God has said — whatever God has said, however he has said it, whatever it means for us.

David Mathis | A midlife crisis, disorienting as it may be, is not only a trial to be endured, but an opportunity for Christian maturity. New cracks in our soul may allow our theology to sink deeper than ever before.

Joe Rigney | The surest way to give the world over to evil is to begin to deny such evil exists. And this is exactly what we have begun doing.

Jon Bloom | “A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” For Mother’s Day, Jon Bloom obeys this verse and honors his mother’s beautiful love for the least of these.

Greg Morse | God is not honored by mere checked boxes. He’s honored by a life that says he can be trusted, obeyed, and treasured above all else.

Scott Hubbard | If you want more joy, more warmth, more life from your devotions, don’t bypass the hard, necessary work of thinking.

David Mathis | Christians stand for truth, but not in the way the world might. Truth, for us, is unavoidably and irreducibly personal.

Marshall Segal | The joy God gives is not a fragile joy, ready to vanish in painful circumstances. It is strong enough to sustain fragile people through them.

Scott Hubbard | How do we show hospitality to the Holy Spirit? We hear his voice, heed his motions, hate his enemies, and receive his grace.

Marshall Segal | One of Satan’s favorite strategies is isolation, and smartphones and social media have made his work that much easier.

Joe Rigney | If you want to understand the Holy Spirit better, you can begin by grasping the images of the Spirit given in Scripture: wind and breath, spirit and river, oil and bird.

John Piper | How does saving faith honor Christ? By seeing him as not only all-sufficient, but all-satisfying. Not only efficacious, but glorious. Not only trustworthy, but a treasure.

Greg Morse | The Spirit can be grieved with us. But if we are in Christ, the Spirit will never leave us.

David Mathis | Jesus did not merely rise from the dead — he had to rise from the dead. His resurrection was not optional. Do you know why?

Jon Bloom | Why do Christians call this Friday, of all Fridays, good? Because we would have no good apart from the horrors of the cross.

Scott Hubbard | When hope flees, and faith feels weak, and the dawn seems to die, what will keep us from falling away? Jesus prays for us.

Joe Rigney | Many of us struggle to experience contentment because we look for it in the wrong places. The satisfied heart prays, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.”

Marshall Segal | The best marriages take their cues not only from the romance of the Song of Solomon, but from the daily, unspectacular faithfulness of the Sermon on the Mount.

Greg Morse | In all the emphases on slow, patient, relational evangelism, have we forgotten just how much God can do in a single conversation?

David Mathis | Jesus’s miracles certainly show that he is God — but the New Testament’s answer as to how he performed those miracles is not quite as simple.

Marshall Segal | If you belong to Christ, God has flooded every familiar and unremarkable corner of your life with his Spirit.

David Mathis | When you think about the love of God, how much has your imagination been shaped by the sentimental age in which you live?