The Pleasures of God

I've been reading a book by John Piper this week The Pleasures of God. I love Piper, his well known literary work Desiring God inspired me a few years ago and I bought The Pleasures of God soon after only to start reading it this week.


The crux of Piper's Pleasures of God is the phrase "The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love" taken from Henry Scougals' The Life of God in the Soul of Man.


Piper insists that the worth and excellency of God's should should also be measured by the object of his love. He reminds us that God's highest pleasure is found in himself, within the Trinity, so that God is not reliant on anything or anyone. So that his worth is in fact supreme because it finds its pleasure in himself - the Supreme Being. But far from being a selfish being, God in a display of his grace chooses to direct his love toward us - who so desperately need it! Piper's application (or so it seems to me so far) is that "If the excellency of God would be admired in his pleasures, and if we tend to conform to what we admire, then focusing on the pleasures of God would help me be conformed to God."


This year at mission we have set a goal for ourselves as a team: to be conformed to the likeness of God. Sp what better place to start than to look at the pleasures of God. First foremost amongst these is of course our Lord and Savior Jesus.


We want our week at Tambar to be a week where not only the kids hear about Jesus but we as a team are also confronted by the witness of Jesus and challenged by how clearly the Father loves his Son and who through offering Him up to death He actually lifts Jesus up to the place of Lord of this world and the next.

We are planning well and good things are being done. Please give thanks for and pray for the following things:

• Give thanks for George and Andrew's work in getting advertising done! Leaflets and flyer's have been done and sent.
• Pray that the advertising material will reach all the relevant families and that many families will come this year. We especially want to see new families coming.
• Please pray for the team as we prepare ourselves for a week of mission. Pray that we would be reading the bible and praying regularly.
• Please pray that God will provide enough money to cover the various costs.
• Please pray for Tammy as she organises the food for the week. Please pray that enough people will be able to provide food for us and that we will be able to keep within our budget.
• Please pray for Prash as he writes the team devotions and the sermon for our Sunday service.
  
• Please pray for Laura as she starts on the drama.

We appreciate your support and prayers. We would love feedback so please leave comments. This week we will be introducing interactive blog entries so stay tuned.