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Ask Pastor John

God Withholds Nothing We Need

Ask Pastor John

Desiring God

John Piper, Unknown, 163859, Pastor, Ask, Theology, Desiring God, Religion & Spirituality/christianity, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Questions

4.83.8K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If God has already promised not to withhold anything good from us, then does asking him for more imply that yesterday’s good wasn’t good enough?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Today we read Psalm 84 together in the Navigator's Bible reading plan. God has promised to not

0:11.3

withhold any good thing from us. Nothing. That's Psalm 84.11. It's a mega promise. It's a huge

0:18.0

blanket promise. But what does it mean when it feels like God is actually

0:21.7

withholding good things from our lives? What does it mean for the single Christian who desperately

0:26.6

wants to be married? Marriage is a good thing, right? So why is God withholding it? Or what about the

0:33.5

married couple struggling with infertility and who desperately want to have children.

0:39.0

Children are a blessing from the Lord, right?

0:41.7

So why is the gift of children being withheld?

0:44.9

We've looked at both of those situations in the past, both through the lens of Psalm 84, actually,

0:50.4

as you can see in the APJ book on pages 142 and 193. But Pastor John, there's another

0:58.2

side to this question, which is why must we even ask him for good things in the first place?

1:03.0

He's already made the promises to us to give us every good thing. And so why must we ask for more?

1:10.0

That's the question on the mind of Luke, a listener to the podcast, who wrote in this?

1:13.2

Hello, Pastor John.

1:14.4

I've noticed that many worship songs being written today express a desire for more, more of Jesus, more of the spirit, more of God's revealed glory, more of his felt presence, and so on.

1:26.0

It seems to me that we're asking for more of something

1:29.0

when, according to Romans 832, in Psalm 8411, we've already been given all things. This gives

1:36.5

the impression that Jesus might be withholding something from us and that we must beg for it

1:41.3

before he gives it to us. What is the difference between asking God for more of something

1:46.6

and realizing that he has not withheld any good thing from us,

1:50.4

as Romans 832 in Psalm 8411 indicate?

1:54.3

This is such a good question.

...

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