Future Grace

I've been reading John Piper's "The Purifying Power of Living by Faith in Future Grace".
And learning a lot. Some things the Lord had already begun to teach me.

On Sin
"Sin is what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God. No one sins out of duty. We sin because it holds out some promise of happiness. That promise enslaves us until we belive that God is more to be desired than life itself. . . All that God promises to be for us in Jesus stands over against what sin promises to be for us without him."

On Anxiety
". . . the root of anxiety is inadequate faith in our Father's future grace. As unbelief gets the upper hand in our hearts, one of the effects is anxiety. The root cause of anxiety is a failure to trust all that God has promised to be for us in Jesus."

On Grace supplied vs. Grace denied
"We should not be suprised that God gives us wonderful graces in the midst of suffering that we had asked him to spare us. He knows best how to apportion his grace for our good and for his glory. . . So Christ's power, acting to sustain and strengthen believers, is also his grace."

On Pride
"Consider the relationship between boasting and self -pity. Both are manifestations of pride. Boasting is the response of pride to success. Self-pity is the response of pride to suffering. Boasting says, 'I deserve admiration because I have achieved so much.' Self-pity says, 'I deserve admiration because I have sacrificed so much.' Boasting is the voice of pride in the heart of the strong. Self-pity is the voice of pride in the heart of the weak. Boasting sounds self-sufficient. Self-pity sounds self-sacrificing. . . The need self-pity feels does not come from a sense of unworthiness, but from a sense of unrecognized worthiness. It is the response of unapplauded pride. When pride is not strong it begins to worry about the future. In the heart of the proud, anxiety is to the future what self-pity is to the past. . . Here is another irony. Anxiety does not look like pride. It looks weak. It looks as though you admit you don't control the future. Yes, in a sense the proud admit that. But the admission does not kill pride until the proud heart is willing to look to the one who does control the future and rest in him. Until then, the proud are hanging on to their right of self-sufficiency even as it crumbles on the horizon of the future."