Don't Waste Your Recession!

John Piper had a good word this weekend at Bethlehem. He spoke from 2 Corinthians 1:1-12 concerning the God designed impact of the current economic recession. Piper continued his "Don't Waste," thoughts--Don't Waste your Life, Don't Waste your Cancer, and now Don't Waste your Recession.

As he unpacked five Godly purposes of the current recession, his first point centered upon the truth that God intends to expose hidden sins and bring us to repentance with this recession. In the midst of the application of this truth both individually and corporately, he emphasized that God brought Paul to his very depth to take him yet deeper. That thought overwhelmed me as I sat through the rest of the message.

In the text Paul says that he was so afflicted that he thought he was going to die. God took affliction and used it to bring Paul to the bottom of himself. But God was only bringing him there to take him even deeper in his relationship with Christ.

The truth is that it takes a recession to reveal to us our hidden sin of self-reliance. This awful sin lies on the bottom--never fully exposing itself but it is there nevertheless. But when a little recession comes into our lives, our reliance in our money, our jobs, our stocks, our retirement fund and a hundred other things is exposed. We see that our joy has been coming in the abundance of these things and not in God's grace.

May we not waste this recession. May it cause us to see our hidden sins and may we hate our sin and repent of it and may this recession take us to the bottom so that that we can go deeper with God. May God grant us the enlightenment to see this recession as a precious God anointed gift to his people to move them deeper with him.

Thank you, John Piper for the good word!