The Passion of Jesus Christ by John Piper

I found this book in like-new condition at a garage sale.  My intentions were to read it during Lent.  I forgot and ended up starting it about a week before Easter and just recently finished it.  

Some things I am still thinking about:

"Being sanctified means that we are imperfect and in process.  We are becoming holy-but are not yet fully holy.  And it is precisely these-and only these-who are already perfected.  The joyful encouragement here is that the evidence of our perfection before God is not our experienced perfection, but our experienced progress.  The good news is that being on the way is proof that we have arrived."

"And what are these "good works"?  Without limiting their scope , the Bible means mainly helping people in urgent need, especially those who posses least and suffer most...Christ died to make us this kind of people-passionate to help the poor and the perishing.  It is the best life, no matter what it costs us in this world: They get help,  we get joy, God gets glory."

"Christ died to save a great diversity of peoples.  Sin is no respecter of cultures.  All peoples have sinned.  Every race and culture needs to be reconciled to God.  As the disease of sin is global, so the remedy is global.  Jesus saw the agony of the cross coming and spoke boldly about the scope of his purpose; "I, when I am lifted up from earth, will draw all people to myself" (John 12:32).  As he planned his death, he embraced the world."

"Our happiest moments have not been self-saturated moments, but self-forgetful moments.  There have been times when we stood beside the Grand  Canyon, or at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, or viewed a stunning sunset over the Sahara, and for a fleeting moment felt the joy of sheer wonder.  This is what we were made for.  Paradise will not be a hall of mirrors.  It will be a display of majesty.  And it won't be ours."

"The origin of evil is shrouded in mystery.  The Bible does not takes us as far as we might like to go.  Rather it says, "The secret things belong to...God" (Deuteronomy 29:29)  The heart of the Bible is not an explanation of where evil came from, but a demonstration of how God enters into it and turns it for the very opposite-everlasting righteousness and joy."