Messages by Desiring God

David Mathis | How do you need God’s help this Advent? What need seems most pressing? Press into the message of Christmas, and you’ll find hope and help in time of need.

David Mathis | To read the Bible is to read the very words of God. Do we grasp the significance, the reality-shaking impact, of this seemingly simple truth?

The birth of John the Baptist was great, but the birth of Jesus Christ was infinitely greater. John prepared for salvation, but Jesus purchased it.

David Mathis | Some may not think of David, the shepherd king, as particularly masculine, but Scripture paints him in a far more manly and glorious light.

Are biblical warnings about false prophets still relevant? Yes, the threat looms as large today as in the first century.

David Mathis | Good pastors are not naive: ministry comes with many costs. Even so, Christ has not called us to an impossible, joyless task. The cross proves otherwise.

David Mathis | What is Christian faith? Hebrews 11 not only answers the question but tells us what faith feels like, and how it leads to obedience, and living as exiles in this world.

When Jesus asks the Pharisees how David calls the Messiah “Lord,” they refuse to answer. What made that seemingly simple question so incendiary?

God is. No reality is more mind-boggling, more valuable, more life-altering, more electrifying than the absolute being of God.

What is sovereign, sustaining grace? It is not grace that spares us pain, but grace that orders our pain — and then sustains us through the pain.

David Mathis | From principals to presidents, leadership failures fill the news. We long for someone in power to lead with wisdom and fairness. Praise God, the ideal king has come.

Romans 8:32 is perhaps the greatest verse in the Bible. No other text quite describes how far God has gone for our salvation and will go for our joy.

God’s word speaks to the mysteries of suffering. We will only bear pain well as we begin to see it like he does.

John Piper | Christ’s blood bought more than our pardon, precious as it is. His death also purchased the power we need to live a radical Christian life.

David Mathis | Why do Christians sing about blood? Because of what happened at the cross, the otherwise morbid topic becomes one of glory, thanks, and praise.

What excites a Christian most? Our deepest, truest joy does not flow from completed degrees or flourishing ministries, but from the God who saved us.

David Mathis | For pastors to be “well thought of by outsiders” certainly isn’t everything, but it made God’s list of requirements. Is it still on ours?

What makes a college distinctly Christian? Education is not an end in itself, but a means to knowing and loving Christ.

David Mathis | Neither biographers nor Broadway can ignore Alexander Hamilton’s late-flowering Christian faith. He, like the prodigal son, finally came home after his journey into the far country.

When a Christian goes home to be with the Lord, we who remain have the chance to rehearse God’s loving design in every believer’s death.

As we age, fears can multiply like wrinkles. But for every concern, we have a blood-bought promise far, far older than our fears.

While on earth, Jesus spoke with unmatched power. Demons obeyed him, and fevers fled at his word. Everything was subject to him — then and now.

David Mathis | Genuine faith welcomes, enjoys, fears, strives after, and rests in God. And in doing so, genuine faith perseveres.

When our hearts run dry, and our good works languish, the Bible bids us: “Consider the end.”

David Mathis | Pastors are first and foremost teachers, but they are not only teachers. They feed the sheep and lead the sheep — and they lead by feeding.