Future Grace

John Piper's book Future Grace is one of the most refeshing I have read in a very long time. I have been reading and thinking a lot lately about God's grace, its depth and breadth, and exactly what it's supposed to look like in action. This book is the best I've found so far to answer my questions. But in doing so it also challenges my very concept of who God is, how he operates, and how I ought to be living my life.

Piper emphasizes the future-oriented aspect of grace, and challenges the reader to find anywhere in the bible where gratitude toward God is supposed to be our motivation for living a good life. The emphasis on grace and the challenge to live by faith is always future-oriented, and God gets much glory when we look forward to a future full of his grace and mercies. On the other hand, if we believe it is out of gratitude for something God has done for us, then we succumb to a debtor's ethic, which states that I owe God something for saving me, thus I will do everything I can to pay him back. But that robs grace of its quality as a gift - something we simply cannot earn.

Piper's credo is "God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him." This is emphasized what feels like hundreds of times in the book, but it is true, and it is consistent with a comment Don Miller makes in his book Searching For God Knows What: "The most selfless thing a perfect being who is perfectly loving could do would be to create other beings to enjoy himself."

The link shown does not specifically discuss John Piper's book Future Grace, but the content is similar. The book was published in 1995 (Multnomah Publishers) and the synopsis on the web site shown was copyrighted in 1999, so I'm thinking he sumamrized the book on the web site.

Highly recommended.