Love to the Uttermost/Editor's Preface

From Gospel Translations

There’s nothing intrinsically holy about particular days, but for most of church history Christians have set aside eight days between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday for solemn focus (Romans 14:5–6). This string of days provides an annual interval for us to focus intently on the greatest events in human history, the acts of our Savior Jesus Christ. “Fix your gaze steadily on him,” John Piper writes of Holy Week, “as he loves you to the uttermost.”

That one word— uttermost —is loaded with significance. Jesus willingly died for his friends and endured unimaginable degrees of suffering to do so (John 13:1). To love to the uttermost is to love freely, without reserve or limit, and without flaw or failure. Love to the uttermost is unquenchable, unstoppable, and resolute. As we watch his arrest and trial and death unfold for eight days, we gaze on a Christ who begrudges no pain or reproach on his pathway to redeem lost sinners. This is the man who “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). This is love to the uttermost.

As the story of Christ’s death freshly hits our senses, we read of a Savior who exercises his own authority over death and promises to take up his own life in the end (John 10:18). “Anybody who makes a statement like that,” Piper writes, “is either mentally deranged, or lying, or God.” Everything is at stake in how we respond to those options. What are we to do with this Jesus who loves to the uttermost and tramples death?

Love to the Uttermost is a devotional spanning from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. It is comprised of eight excerpts (plus one prologue reading) selected from John Piper’s vast 32-year writing and preaching ministry at Bethlehem Baptist Church in the Twin Cities. This devotional can be used for personal, family, or group devotions. It can serve anyone who seeks a steadied gaze to watch our Savior as he loves us to the uttermost.

Tony Reinke

Desiring God