
Articles by Desiring God
602 episodes — Page 4 of 13

Forget Your First Name: How to Live for Legacy
Greg Morse | We are a generation of first names, of forgotten pasts and rootless family trees. But in Christ, God empowers us to live for something bigger, greater, and far longer lasting.

Does God Delight in Me? His Pleasure in (Imperfect) Holiness
Scott Hubbard | How can the present holiness of Christians bring God pleasure? Because true holiness, however imperfect, beats sin with God’s own pleasure in himself.

‘Enter into My Happiness’: Jesus’s Invitation to Infinite Joy
David Mathis | Nine times in rapid succession, Jesus invites us into the very happiness of God. Surprising as that may be, his conditions for entrance may shock us even more.

Keep Watch Over Souls: A One-Verse Charge to Pastors
Greg Morse | Hebrews 13:17 offers a solemn and glorious charge to every pastor: keep watch over immortal souls as those who will give an account to Christ.

War Your Way to Heaven
Greg Morse | The Christian life is one of fierce holiness. Christ calls us to hoist crosses, hack off limbs, gouge out eyes, contend for souls, and wage war against spiritual powers.

What Makes God Happiest? Enjoying His Signature Joy
David Mathis | Lay God’s many pleasures side by side, and ask which one is his deepest delight. Across the scope of Scripture, one clear answer emerges.

Save a Soul from Death: How We Bring Wanderers Back
Greg Morse | Do you know someone who is wandering away from Jesus? God may have a word for you in the final verses of James, a letter to spiritual wanderers.

A Republic — If God Keeps It
David Mathis | At the founding, perhaps only as few as 10 percent of Americans were church members. So, what happened in the early 1800s, and what might we learn from it today?

A Father’s 5-to-9: The Holy Ambition of Godly Dads
Scott Hubbard | Children need to see a dad ambitious to spread God’s kingdom in the world. But with equal surety, children need to see a dad ambitious about being dad.

Speak to Men Like Men
Greg Morse | In our overly sensitive society, have we lost the ability to talk to men like men?

The Wild Glory of an ‘Ordinary’ Life
Jon Bloom | A typical human life is a lot like grass — brief, quiet, and apparently ordinary. But one day we will see that no human life could ever be considered ordinary.

The Skies We Die Under: Common Deathbed Deceptions
Greg Morse | Many hopes make death easier. Many give a sense of life well-lived. Many bring comfort. But only one hope will not prove flattering and false in the end.

The Blessings of Being Bound: Finding Freedom Through Commitment
Scott Hubbard | Many imagine the more options, the more happiness. But from the beginning, it was not so. God made us to find freedom in loyalty, blessing in being bound.

My Body Is Not My Own: How God Redeems What Sin Seized
David Mathis | Magnifying Christ in our bodies depends, in part, on understanding the story of our bodies — how God redeems what sin has seized and fits our flesh for glory.

The Strong Legacy of a Weak Father
Jon Bloom | Don’t underestimate the impact a debilitated father can have on his children. Sometimes, the strength our kids need to see most comes through profound weakness.

The Undistracted Soldier: Six Marks of Christian Manhood
Greg Morse | How might men of God live like the disentangled soldiers God calls us to be? We might learn from the example of a soldier slain for refusing to play civilian.

Love (All) Your Neighbors: A Surprising Test of True Faith
Scott Hubbard | If you want to assess the health of your faith, don’t simply consider your acts of religious worship. Consider the depth of your love for neighbors.

Throw Yourself Away in Hope: The Sacred Death of Fatherhood
Greg Morse | Fathers give life through death. They lay themselves down to die, like seeds planted in the earth, trusting that God will grant a future harvest.

Lord of All the Law: How Jesus Handled the Ten Commandments
David Mathis | Are the Ten Commandments binding on Christians today? Pay careful attention to the words of Jesus, how he handles the Ten, and the greater authority he brings.

God Beckons Through Beauty: Where Our Deepest Longings Lead
Jon Bloom | The longings we feel at the sight or sound of beauty point to something beyond the beauty itself. They point to the place and the person from which all the beauty comes.

Give Them Time to Grow: Learning the Power of Patient Love
Scott Hubbard | If we could imagine the coming glory of the Christians we know, we might find the grace we need today to remain patient with their slow growth.

The Splendor of His Queen: How the Church Reflects Christ’s Majesty
David Mathis | For now, the church appears with spots and wrinkles and many blemishes. But the day is coming when Jesus will present her to himself in splendor — as the reflection of his own majesty.

When Love Takes You by the Shoulders: Embracing the Gift of Exhortation
Jon Bloom | Sometimes, the encouragement we need most is not tender but firm — not a shoulder to cry on, but someone to lovingly take us by the shoulders.

Bring Out Her Best: The Privilege of Christian Husbands
Scott Hubbard | Among the various ways we can describe a husband’s calling, one may help to capture our focus, and give us a lifetime of work: bring out your wife’s best.

Grace Has Taught Our Hearts to Fear
Greg Morse | Many today downplay or dismiss the fear of God. But in one of the Bible’s most staggering promises, God names fear as one of the best gifts of the new covenant.

The Lost Son Who Never Left: Imagining the Older Brother’s Return
Jon Bloom | Like the older brother in Jesus’s parable, we can be lost in our moralism and condemned in our duties. He too needs to return home. Here is his story.

See Through Enemy Eyes: Expecting Temptation Before It Comes
Greg Morse | If you want to discern your most vulnerable points of spiritual attack, try asking, “If I were Satan and wanted to destroy my soul, how would I do it?”

Examine Yourself, Forget Yourself: Help for the Overly Introspective
Scott Hubbard | Self-examination can leave us feeling lost in the mirror of me. But done rightly, self-examination can lead to health, freedom, and self-forgetful joy in Christ.

Head of Every Head: How to Lead Like Jesus
David Mathis | Every husband is a head, and every husband has a head: Jesus. And husbands lead best when they first know themselves weak and in need of his help.

Better Than Our Bitter Thoughts: The God of Surprising Goodness
Greg Morse | Hard and bitter thoughts about God reveal far more about us than about him. He is the good God, the wonderful God, far better than our best thoughts of him.

Be Ready to Speak of Jesus: Evangelism as Spiritual Warfare
Scott Hubbard | In spiritual war, Christians do not simply hold fast or stand firm — we advance and march with our King, boldly sharing Christ with a lost world.

The Unimpressive Path to Immortality
Greg Morse | Does the Christian life feel uncomfortably ordinary a lot of days? Come and remember the startling glory of this narrow, simple path.

Life Beneath a Sovereign Lord: How His Power Unleashes Us
Scott Hubbard | If God really is as sovereign as the Bible says, how should we live? His sovereignty invites us to pray more boldly, take greater risks, and draw even closer to heaven.

Wrap Your Soul in Truth: Under-Armor for Spiritual War
David Mathis | Christians are people of the truth — lovers of the truth, speakers of the truth, armored in the truth, as we follow Truth himself.

To War, to Christ, to Glory
Greg Morse | If God is for us in spiritual war, then who can stand against us? Rise up, men of the cross, sisters of the crown, soldiers of Christ.

Risen to Love His Own: The Surprising Mercies of Easter
Scott Hubbard | On the first Easter, Jesus surprised our sorrow with joy, our guilt with forgiveness, our confusion with clarity. And so he still surprises today.

Life Is for Living
Greg Morse | How needful is it to know our end before we get there? How priceless to feel our fleetness before our ship sails?

Good Friday for Bad People
Marshall Segal | Good Friday bids us to stop and remember just how sinful we were — just how bleak it was for us before that darkest day in history.

Bring Your Grief to Gethsemane: The Healing Wounds of Maundy Thursday
David Mathis | Tonight is not first about our griefs. But as we draw near to the sorrows of Jesus, we do indeed find comfort for every grief — and grace for every sin.

What (Not) to Preach: How to Build and Cut a Sermon
David Mathis | After a preacher has wrestled for days, even weeks, with a sermon text, and wrestled hard with the needs of his particular people, he can ask, Which glories here am I most excited to preach?

Restore My Soul: In Pursuit of Personal Revival
Scott Hubbard | Follow Christ long enough, and you’ll find yourself in some spiritual valley, in desperate need of renewal. When you do, follow the map God has drawn for us: Remember. Return. Remove. Restore.

Sin Won’t Comfort You: How Satan Tempts the Hurting
Marshall Segal | The “comforts” of sin may seem safer and more appealing in the fires of your trials, but they will only make your pain that much worse.

Revival in the Making: God’s Central Means for Spiritual Renewal
David Mathis | Seeming revivals come and go, but genuine, God-wrought awakenings share one vital ingredient: they are centered on the word of God.

The Joy of Genuine Revival: Four Signs of the Holy Spirit
Marshall Segal | When the Holy Spirit fills a person, he brings supernatural, countercultural joy: joy that submits, joy that endures, joy that spreads, and joy that waits.

Start Small, Step Up, and Fail Well: How to Pursue Pastoral Ministry
Scott Hubbard | Before you are called to pastor Christ’s church, practice serving her, loving her, edifying her. Let your favorite word while you wait be “progress.”

Why We Long for Revival
Jon Bloom | Why do earnest Christians long for revival? Because revival gives us more of our heart’s deepest desire and strongest delight: Jesus.

Uprooting Sensibility: The Plain Speech of Godly Men
Greg Morse | Politeness and niceness are not the only categories of godly speech. Sometimes, the painful word is best, even if it incites offense.

Are You Sailing or Sinking? A Tool for Diagnosing Spiritual Health
Marshall Segal | If you want to assess the health of a soul, try asking these four questions from Tim Keller: Are you sailing? Are you rowing? Are you drifting? Or are you sinking?

Even Believers Need to Be Warned: How Hell Motivates Holiness
Scott Hubbard | When Paul mentioned hell, he warned not only the lost, but believers. Why might that be, and should we be warning one another in the church today?

The Gospel of God’s Happiness
Greg Morse | God was happy before this world existed, and he’ll be happy long after it passes away. Have you been properly introduced to the happiness of heaven?