Review: The Dawning of Indestructible Joy: Daily Readings for Advent

 

John Piper. The Dawning of Indestructible Joy.  Wheaton, IL: Crossway, August 31st 2014.  94 pp.

4 out of 5

Free: Desiring God

Purchase: Amazon

Looking for a devotional book on the Advent Season that would make you love Christ more and increase your joy meditating on Christ’s incarnation?  This book is by John Piper will flame your passion for Jesus.  As the subtitle states the book is a “Daily Readings for Advent.”

There are devotions from December 1^st through December 25^th.  There’s also an introduction about praying for fullness based upon John 1:14–16.  There’s also a conclusion that talks about peace that is for believers of the Gospel.  Each day’s devotions are about two through three pages each so its manageable devotions.

The passages that John Piper looks at are laregely not the traditional passages that are found in Christmas devotionals.  This is a plus and minus.  It’s a plus if you want to read something different after all there’s a lot of great passages in Scripture for one’s devotional reading.  But a disadvantage there’s time where after reading for several days worth of devotions I wonder what does this have to do with the incarnation and the first coming of Christ?  Still one good thing with this book is that it is thoroughly biblical and there’s no heresy or false teaching in this work.  Plus it points readers to Jesus and the Gospel unfiltered; praise the Lord for that!

There were thoughts I enjoyed meditating upon as a result of contents in this book.  For instance on page 15 I enjoyed Piper’s point of Jesus is on a search and save mission.  For December 5^th’s devotion Piper looked at 1 John 3:5-8 and expounded on two reasons why Christmas happened is to take away sins (verse 5) and to destroy y the work of the devil (verse 8).  I also appreciated Piper’s point that Christmas with the birth of Jesus cut history into two ages: Ages of Promise and Age of fulfillment.  For December 17^th’s entry Piper want to make sure readers does not walk away reading this devotion and think its all about serving God; with the Gospel Piper makes the point from Mark 10:45 that we shouldn’t miss the fact that we are servedby Christ.  I appreciate that.  I also love this quote: “When people have doubts about the truth of Jesus, don’t send them away to seek special messages from God. Point them to Christ. Tell them what you have seen and heard in his life and teachings. Why? Because this is where God breaks in with his revealing power. He loves to glorify his Son!  He loves to open the eyes of the blind when they are looking at his Son!” (65-66).

Overall I’m glad I read this though it focused more on the traditional passages on the Incarnation and the coming of Christ.