The Blazing Center Study Guide: The Soul-Satisfying Supremacy of God in All Things

What Do You Revolve Around?

All the planets of your life—from your labor and leisure to your thinking and feeling—are held in orbit by the greatness, gravity, and blazing brightness of Jesus Christ at the center of your life. When He ceases to be the center, the planets of your life fly into confusion, sending a hundred things out of control. Pastor John Piper’s powerful teaching is recorded during an intimate retreat for youth leaders and students onto three The Blazing Center DVDs. With the study guide, this is an ideal package for adult and youth Sunday school classes, small groups, retreats, classrooms, and families. Discover surprising insights about the reality of sin, how your love for God is really revealed, and how only joy in Him will sustain you through times of suffering.

God Is the Blazing Sun at the Center of Reality

Everything revolves around Him. And as the most valuable and glorious person who exists, God is loving, not conceited, when He calls us to worship Him. His pursuit of glory and our pursuit of joy are not at odds—because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

This study guide is designed to be used in a ten-session, guided group study that focuses on The Blazing Center DVD set:

Lesson 1—Introduction to The Blazing Center

Lesson 2—The Blazing Center: A Personal Story

Lesson 3—The Blazing Center: Is God Vain?

Lesson 4—Pursue Your Joy: Isn’t That Hedonism?

Lesson 5— Pursue Your Joy: God Commands It!

Lesson 6—True Love: Duty or Delight? (Part 1)

Lesson 7—True Love: Duty or Delight? (Part 2)

Lesson 8—Suffering: For the Joy Set Before You (Part 1)

Lesson 9— Suffering: For the Joy Set Before You (Part 2)

Lesson 10—Review and Conclusion

Complete with Scripture and key quotations for reflection, penetrating questions, and five daily assignments per week, this study guide will help you place God at the center of your life. When God is the blazing sun at the center of your solar system, all the planets of your life come into proper orbit.

Leader’s guide included!

Story Behind the Book

“The greatest news in all the world is that there is no final conflict between my passion for joy and God’s passion for His glory. The knot that ties these together is the truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. Jesus Christ died and rose again to forgive the treason of our souls, which have turned from savoring God to savoring self. In the cross of Christ, God rescues us from the house of mirrors and leads us out to the mountains and canyons of His majesty. Nothing satisfies us—or magnifies Him—more.”
—John Piper

John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis since 1980, is the author of The Dangerous Duty of Delight, Desiring God, Future Grace, A Godward Life, and The Pleasures of God. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of Munich and taught biblical studies for six years at Bethel College, St. Paul, before becoming a pastor. He and his wife, Noel, have four sons and one daughter