How Suffering Reveals Your True Self
When the thing you have been trusting is laid to waste, you don’t suffer just the loss of that thing; you also suffer the loss of the identity and security that it provided.
Articles by Paul David Tripp
154 results found
10 Things You Should Know about Sex
God created and has good purposes for sex in the context of marriage, and we don't always view it rightly.
People are susceptible to believing all sorts of misconceptions about the purposes and practices of marriage.
4 Reasons for Hope in Suffering
In our suffering God is at work to give us something much better than what we want.
5 Ways the COVID-19 Pandemic Points Us to the Gospel
When we are weary and distraught, we have a place to go. Jesus welcomes us to come to him and cast our cares on him.
3 Reasons Jesus Is Our Only Hope
The Advent story is a hope story because it chronicles the coming to earth of the One who is hope, Jesus.
Your marriage is shaped by your commitment to say no. Your parenting is shaped by your willingness to say no. Your friendships are shaped by how often you say no.
6 Daily Commitments to Make for a Good Marriage
You can have a marriage that is mutually satisfying while being honoring to God. You really can!
2 Reasons Bully Pastors Rise Up in the Church
The church is experiencing a leadership crisis. Two key elements contribute to this crisis.
Christian Sufferer, Your Lord Is Near
I can’t think of anything that is more powerfully comforting than these words: I will never leave you or forsake you.
We come into this world as a danger to ourselves. We are naturally more discontented than contented.
10 Things You Should Know about Marriage
Your marriage's biggest problem is not the imperfection of your spouse. No, it is what lurks in the recesses of your heart. Your biggest struggle is with your own selfishness.
8 Ways We Normalize the Abnormal
God has made it clear that the norm for his children should be love. It is the thing that the listening and watching world should know us for.
A Message to the Christian Battling Sexual Sin
We can't blame our environment for our struggles. The root of our wrong thinking about sex is not cultural, it's our own hearts.
How to Pray When You’re Fighting with Your Spouse
Every marriage is guided by a set of habits. The question is, are they healthy habits that result in a God-honoring and joyful marriage?
10 Things You Should Know about Money
Money is an accurate window on what is truly important to us.
We May Be Confused, but God Isn’t
As much as we try to make sense of our lives, there are things that we simply aren’t able to understand.
What Did Jesus Teach about Money?
We keep telling ourselves that the next thing will be what satisfies us, but it never does.
You need to understand that there are two parts of the Christmas story, and you need both parts to make proper sense out of the whole story.
How to Pray When You’re Tempted by Sexual Sin
Sexual sin is a matter of the heart. When it comes to sex, we all need to say that the biggest problem in our sexual lives is us.
The Best Parenting Passage in the Entire Bible
Our children must learn to look at life through the lens of the will and plan of their Creator—to develop a comprehensive biblical worldview that is distinctively God-centered and biblically driven.
A Good Marriage Needs These 2 Things
The key character quality in a good and lasting marriage is humility, and the way that humility demonstrates itself is when I'm approachable and willing to admit my faults.
Money can’t buy you a satisfied heart, money can’t buy you peace and happiness, and money can’t buy you a reason to get up in the morning.
Scripture tells us that sin is deceitful. We are often deceived into believing two lies, as we step outside of God’s boundaries and do what he has forbidden.
7 Questions That Teens Need to Answer
Teenagers are in one of the most exciting and most important times of their lives. Paul Tripp points to seven questions they will face that will influence the shape and direction of the rest of their lives.
The topic of money can be tricky for Christians to navigate. What does the Bible say about it and how ought we to use it to honor God?
How Is Love of Money a Root of Evil?
The root system of the love of money runs deeper and wider through the soil of the human heart than we tend to think.
4 Things Dads Should Teach Their Kids about Money
Your kids need more than practical tips for managing their money. They need theology.
Is Your View of Women Aligned with Your Theology?
A body of Christ is healthiest when women are esteemed and their gifts highly valued, not just in the home but also in the church.
Rest in God’s Faithfulness, Not Yours
God not only forgives your sins and guarantees you a seat in eternity, but welcomes you to a radically new way of living.
5 Things You Must Remember about the Resurrection
What does it look like to look at life through the window of the resurrection? As I assess my life right here, right now, what about the resurrection must I remember? Let me suggest five things.
Why Mourning Can Be Good for Us
Mourning sin—past, present, and future—is the first step in seeking and celebrating the hope of divine grace.
6 Gospel-Centered Leadership Values
If the primary driving force of leadership in local churches around the world was the gospel of Jesus Christ, we could avoid so much sadness in the lives of church leaders.
This gospel meditation by Paul David Tripp explores the idea of elusive rest and our ultimate hope in the life to come.
6 Ways to Fight the Debilitating Power of Doubt
In your suffering, doubt is a battle worth fighting. Remember, you never fight this battle alone but with the strength that is yours because of the presence and power of Christ.
3 Reality Checks for Your Marriage
What are the essential wisdom perspectives that Scripture gives us that enable us to have realistic expectations for our marriage?
What We Misunderstand about Freedom
I think we misunderstand true freedom. Freedom that satisfies your heart is never found in setting yourself up as your own authority.
Beware the Idol of Busyness at Christmas
We must be careful to guard the true meaning of Christmas, keeping it from becoming about busyness and bondage to creation.
6 Truths about Parenting That Reorient Everything
Paul David Tripp draws six agenda-setting observations from Psalm 51 for our work as a parents.
Fear Not, Your Future Is Secure
No matter how hard your story is right here, right now, it is guaranteed for you as God’s child that it will end better that you can imagine.
5 Stumbling Blocks to Pastoral Honesty
Why isn’t humble candor more of a regular part of our ministry leadership culture? Why aren’t we more ready to confess spiritual discouragement or struggle?
3 Things to Remember about Your (Imperfect) Marriage
What are the essential wisdom perspectives that Scripture gives us that enable us to have realistic expectations for our marriage?
7 Commitments to Make before Using Social Media
Because of who human beings are by God’s design and their lofty place in God’s economy, we should always treat everyone with dignity no matter who they are.
In a Divisive World Your Values Reveal Your God
The gospel is entirely relational. Christ purchased for us peace with God and, through that peace, peace with one another.
Why It Is Good to Be Poor in Spirit
Our culture is obsessed with wealth and riches. Why, then, does Jesus call the poor "blessed?"
Because your world is not out of control but under God’s careful redemptive control, you can have hope even when it looks to you as if darkness is winning the day.
Dear Pastor . . . You Need to Recognize Your Limits
Our limits and weaknesses are not in the way of what God can do through us, but our denial of limits and our delusions of independent strength are.
What glory right here, right now, has captured your heart, and how is it shaping the way you respond to the situations, locations, and relationships in your life?
You Need a Theology of Uncomfortable Grace
Mourning acknowledges that the world is not the way God meant it to be. Mourning cries out for God’s redeeming, restoring hand.
Give Up on Your Own Self-Righteousness
There is a difference between a person in whom disappointment leads to self-reformation and someone in whom grief leads to heartfelt confession. We often confuse the two.
Don’t Quit the Everyday Work of Marriage
Why do we quit paying attention? Because it is hard work to care, it is hard work to discipline ourselves to be careful, and it is hard work to always be thinking of another person.
8 Ways the Doctrine of Eternity Clarifies Our Values
If you want to know what you truly value, consider where you tend to invest your time, energy, gifts, and money.
What Is the Central Hope for Your Marriage?
What's a biblical view of marriage? It's a flawed person married to a flawed person in a fallen world. But with a faithful God.
A Word to Those Who Are Lonely This Christmas
Human beings weren't created to be lonely. We were created for intimate relationship with God and intimate relationships with one another.
Why Partial Obedience Is Disobedience
Do you find joy in obeying your Lord? Do you treasure his commands? Do you recognize the protective wisdom of the boundaries he has set for you?
Watch Paul Tripp Teach on 12 Doctrines That Will Transform Your Life
Paul David Tripp takes a close look at twelve core doctrines and how they engage and transform the human heart and mind.
The One Thing That Makes Parenting Tough Today
Distraction is a huge issue for the modern Christian parent.
A Single Word to Sum Up Christmas
God’s response to our rebellion was to give us himself. He is the great redeeming, transforming gift. He is the rescue.
Are You Losing Your Gospel Mind?
I don’t know about you, but in the rush and press of life I can lose my mind. No, I’m talking about a subtle form of insanity that often inflicts me and a vast number of my Christian brothers and sisters.
What character is required so that we can be part of what God is seeking to do in the lives of our children and not in the way of it?
Squeezing Marriage into Our Kingdom of Self
Why do we have to marry flawed people? Wouldn’t it have been much easier if God had worked it out so that we would be fully sanctified, then married?
5 Questions That Steal or Seal Your Hope
It is quite clear that your view of God will inescapably shape your perspective on your circumstances. In this way your theology is like a lens through which you examine life.
Why We Desperately Need the Body of Christ
Why do I need the daily intervention of the body of Christ? The answer is as simple as it is humbling.
Before You Gather, Mourn Your Sin
In our avoidance of sadness, we often numb ourselves to death with entertainment. Perhaps what we’re running from is not just sadness; perhaps we’re running from ourselves.
4 Traps to Avoid When You Suffer
How we respond to suffering shapes our experiences with suffering.
Why would anyone ever fast? What is to be gained from giving things up?
The Best Premarital Advice Is Bad News
In marriage preparation, we need to get at the deeper heart issues, the deeper effect of sin on the way that we function, and begin to expose how sin reveals itself.
Lent Ends in Jesus’s Death—and Yours
Everywhere you die, you will be resurrected to new life in that area. It is the continuing resurrection/ transformation/liberation work of sanctifying grace.
Why You Should Be Thankful for Your Knowledge of Sin
Of all the blessings in my life, one is without a doubt the most wonderful blessing of all. Of all the things I most needed, but could never provide for myself, this was my deepest need.
Suffer the Loss of What Has You in Its Grip
Lent calls us to remember once again that sin reduces us all to idolaters somehow, someway.
The Spiritually Dangerous Spiral of Complaint
You can’t complain about God’s provision without questioning his wisdom, goodness, faithfulness, and love.
5 Things Your Children Need from You
Parenting is not a behavior-control mission; it is a heart-rescue mission. The only hope for a lost child is a radical transformation of his heart.
Why Every Parent Should Embrace Their Inability
It is vital that you believe and admit that you have no power whatsoever to change your child.
A Diagnosis of Our Culture's View of Sexuality
We've lost the ability to talk about sex and gender, asking sex to be what it was never meant to be.
4 Roles Scripture Plays in the Life of a Believer
The doctrines of the word of God were not intended just to lay claim on your brain, but also to capture your heart and transform the way you live.
7 Essential Things to Know about Hope
Hope is not a situation. Hope is not a location. Hope is not a possession. Hope is not an experience. Hope is more than an insight or a truism.
Faith is much more than a one-time decision; it is a lifestyle lived with the presence, promises, and call of God always in view.
The Longing of Every Human Heart
There is no emotion, no experience, and no quest more authentically human than love.
Hopelessness Leads Us to the True Hope of Christmas
God created our lives to be propelled and directed by hope, and he meant our capacity for hope to drive us to him.
3 Musts before You Hit “Reply”
A commitment to wholesome talk isn’t first a commitment to a restricted vocabulary but rather to change at the level of the thoughts, desires, intentions, and choices of the heart.
Fulfilling Your Personal Definition of Happiness Is Not God’s Goal
Our agenda, our definition of what a good God should give us, is a life that is comfortable, pleasurable, and predictable; one in which there’s lots of human affirmation and no suffering.
You Can Trust God's Design for Sex
The essence of obedience is not simply doing the right stuff. Rather, the essence of obedience is the heart, and what must live in the heart of the obedient person is a willing submission to God’s authority.
Dear Pastor . . . We Are Out of Balance
The world as God created it was designed with perfect balance. What is balance? It is everything in its right place doing what it was meant to do. We cannot even picture such a world.
Grace Gives Us a New Way to Live
The most outrageous acts of penance in the world are powerless to do what needs to be done—radically transform your heart. So you and I are left with only one final option.
How Suffering Crushes Our Unrealistic Expectations
Our expectation is that tomorrow will be just the same as today was, but this world is not operating the way that God intended for it to operate.
The Most Powerful Force of Transformation in the Universe
Grace is the most powerful force of transformation in the universe. The incalculable transforming power of grace should never be minimized or doubted.
There is one kind of bad news that you and I often work to deny but that we desperately need to face. Facing this news is a matter of life and death, even though it is the worst news ever.
3 Ways to Root Your Marriage in Worship
Where will you find the reasons to continue working on your marriage in those disappointing moments when those reasons are most needed? Well, you won’t find them in your spouse.
3 Ways to Prepare for the Battles of Ministry
How do we strategize together as leadership communities for the battle?
10 Notable Quotes from New Morning Mercies
As sinners in need of grace, we can find comfort and rest knowing that God’s mercy toward us is new at the break of each day.
Parents, Your Children Were Never Intended to Give You Identity
If you are not resting in your vertical identity, you will look horizontally, searching to find yourself and your reason for living in something in the creation
There is no doubt about it—the Bible is a big-picture book that calls us to big-picture living.
How Not to Share the Gospel at Christmas
Christmas is a wonderful opportunity to share the hope of Christ with people in your life—both in word and deed.
Are You Far from God This Christmas?
The Christmas story is a story of God making himself available, making himself near. And, so it's a story for everyone who feels distant from God.
The Best News Ever for Our Sexual Struggles
What does God give us to face our inevitable struggles and sufferings? The resoundingly glorious answer of Romans 8 is that he gives us the only thing that can truly provide the rescue, wisdom, and strength we need.
Marriage Is a Place for Joyful Sacrifice
Every day in a good marriage is just a series of sacrifices that you joyfully make and that you then enjoy the fruit of that spirit of sacrifice.
Reading God's Word When You Don't Want To
Pick God’s Word up not with the burden of guilt or as a call to duty, but because it’s a gift given to you by a God of amazingly tender mercy and grace.
3 Things We Often Forget about the Christmas Story
Three words that sum up what we’ve tended to miss about the Christmas story are sacrifice, honesty, and glory.
Why We Need a Paradigm Shift about Money
We need a brand-new way of thinking about money, a way that is rooted in the gospel story and its narrative of the lavish grace of God.
We forget who we are, and when we do, we begin to give way to doubt, fear, and timidity. Identity amnesia makes you feel poor when in fact you are rich.
How Psalm 145 Saved My Ministry
I can’t tell you how many times in my early days of ministry I questioned if God had really called me into pastoral ministry.
Why did Jesus send his disciples into that storm? He did it for the same reason he sometimes sends you into storms—because he knows that sometimes you need the storm in order to be able to see the glory.
This gospel meditation by Paul David Tripp encourages us to turn to Christ in our hardships, taking even our most difficult moments to him.
The First Step in Celebrating Divine Grace
It’s good to mourn, it’s healthy to be sad, and it’s appropriate to groan. Something is wrong with us, something is missing in our hearts and our understanding of life.
How to Find Yourself in the Psalms
I love the psalms because we find ourselves, but even more significantly, we find our Lord in the psalms.
If you’re not dealing with hardship now, you will someday. And if you’re not dealing with it now, you are near someone who is.
His Blessings Flow Far as the Curse Is Found
What is the scope of the work of redemption? What in the world is God working on? What does the final chapter of the grand redemptive story look like?
Money will either bless you or curse you. It will be a tool in the hands of a God of grace, or it will be a doorway to bad and dangerous things.
3 Words of Counsel to Sufferers
Be aware that you're always preaching to yourself some kind of gospel.
Doctrine: Information Leading to Heart Transformation
When you enter the world of biblical truth, you’re entering a moral battleground. The great drama of life is not about information.
The Present Hope of the Gospel
It is life-changing to know and believe that Jesus came so that we would have all that we need to live as he intended right now.
The Christian life, the church, our faith are not about us, they’re about him—his plan, his kingdom, his glory.
In an Outrage Culture, Choose Respect
We would do well to remember that behind the social media post is someone who was formed by God to bear his likeness.
You Need a Well-Oiled Gospel Memory
It is important to have a well-oiled, activated gospel memory. It’s important to require yourself never to forget.
Why Parenting Is One of the Most Significant Callings
Nothing is more important in your life than being one of God’s tools to form a human soul.
Give Yourself to Prayer This Lenten Season
Lent could be one of those seasons where you take time to meditate, examine, and consider. Here are four categories that can organize this season of worship for you.
Sin causes us to deny our need for God and others. Sin causes us to assign to ourselves the wisdom, strength, and righteousness we do not have.
What Your Marriage Desperately Needs
Here is what you have to understand: forgiveness is a vertical commitment that is followed by a horizontal transaction.
God’s rebuke is never about giving up on us; it’s about investing in us once again. God rebukes us because we need it.
What Is Doctrine and Why Does It Matter?
Faith is not just something you do with your brain. Faith is a commitment of your heart that changes the way you live every day.
Foundational Qualities of Good Leaders (That Might Surprise You)
What is the foundational quality of a good leader?
2 Responses to the World's Brokenness
If you mourn the fallenness of your world rather than curse its difficulties, you know that grace has visited you
The Key to Understanding Why Parenting Is Hard
The Bible is incredibly helpful in leading us to understand why parenting is so challenging.
Suffering is so real, so physical, so emotional, and so life-dominating that it’s hard to think of anything but the present moment of pain.
4 Ways to Strengthen Your Marriage This Christmas Season
Be intentional to focus on the gospel this Christmas. Here are some suggestions for how to do this in your marriage this year.
Show My Child Grace, or Lay Down the Law?
I know my children need the awareness of God’s law, they also need the self-awareness that law gives them.
Prepare Your Heart for Thanksgiving with Paul Tripp
Contentment celebrates grace. The contented heart is satisfied with the Giver and is therefore freed from craving the next gift.
How to Center Your Family on Christ During the Holidays
How can you always point your children and family to the spiritual significance of this time of year?
The Story of Jesus Guarantees How Your Story Will End
We all work to make the plot that we have written for ourselves come true. But grace introduces another author.
The one prayer Christ calls us all to pray requires us to let go of our momentary agendas and take up his eternal one.
Help for When a Pastor’s Time and Energy Are Limited
As you think about God-ordained limits of time, what changes are needed in your leadership community?
Consider Your Money Philosophy
Are we truly using and thinking of money with a Christ-centered heart? These questions will help you evaluate the role of money in your life.
#yourewrong - Our Problem with Self-Righteousness (Reactivity Episode 3)
Paul Tripp talks about the self-centeredness and self-righteousness that work together to deceive us into believing we’re always right and about the humility that cures this selfishness and radically changes us.
Should I Try to Be My Child's Friend?
Your child should know without a doubt that you deeply love them, even on their worst day.
How Grace Lets You Have It All
The more you understand the magnitude of God’s grace, the more accurate will be your view of the depth of your unrighteousness; and the more you understand the depth of your unrighteousness, the more you will appreciate the magnitude of God’s gift of grace.
This gospel meditation by Paul David Tripp laments the effects of sin’s curse on the world.
Jesus Didn’t Show Up Unannounced
The surety of past prophecies and the specificity of how Jesus fulfilled them is also your guaranteed future hope.
This gospel meditation by Paul David Tripp contrasts the broken cities of this world with the restored one to come.
You Are in Constant Communication with the Lord
If you are a true believer in Jesus, you are in constant communication with your Lord in some way—either vocally or in your heart.
Communing with the Savior in Every Season
We can rest in the midst of difficult seasons because of the Savior who leads us and loves us, even in unexpected and hard places.
You must be willing to do whatever is necessary to position yourself as a tool of redeeming grace.
Living with the Enemy That Is Sin
The greatest victory in David’s life was not a victory of David’s at all, but, rather, God’s victory of grace over the sin that had captivated David’s heart.
#toxic - Why Is Our Culture So Reactive? (Reactivity Episode 1)
Paul Tripp discusses the toxic culture of reactivity full of anger, mockery, and disrespect that is so common to see on social media but also bleeds into our everyday relationships.
The Problem of "Kingdom" in Our Marriages
We are drawn to order, predictability, comfort, ease, pleasure, appreciation, fun, and personal happiness. We don’t like difficulty of any kind.
Marriages are Built or Destroyed Moment by Moment
If you are a sinner married to a sinner, then it is very dangerous to allow yourself to coast as a couple.
Christ Is a Light for the Lost
This gospel meditation by Paul David Tripp expresses a burden to share the light of Christ with those who may be unaware of his presence.
The Battle of Accepting Our Limits
This gospel meditation explores the idea of being worried and confused with the Christian life, offering an invitation to turn to God when life doesn't make sense.
Take Your Life Off Your Shoulders
God not only forgives your sins and guarantees you a seat in eternity, but welcomes you to a radically new way of living.
#QandA - Paul Tripp Answers Your Questions about Social Media (Reactivity Episode 8)
In this final episode of the Reactivity podcast, Paul Tripp answers questions submitted by listeners related to how Christians should think about social media and its impact on us.
#meantweets - Our Problem with Anger (Reactivity Episode 2)
Paul Tripp talks about the normalization of emotionally driven responses and especially reactions filled with fear and anger, two of the primary emotions that drive the culture of toxic reactivity.
#fightme - Our Problem with Craving Controversy (Reactivity Episode 5)
Paul Tripp talks about the difference between the love of truth and the love of controversy, which is no longer motivated by the two great commands to love God and love your neighbor.
#antisocialmedia - Our Problem with Individualism (Reactivity Episode 4)
Paul Tripp discusses the message of individualism in our culture that is destructive to our relationships and is an enemy of the community that God carefully designed for us to live in.
#fail - Our Need for Grace (Reactivity Episode 7)
Paul Tripp talks about the differences between a culture of condemnation and a culture of redemption, and he makes an honest confession.
#thosepeople - Our Problem with Tribalism (Reactivity Episode 6)
Paul Tripp talks about our culture of tribalism in which we associate primarily with those who agree with us and find it easier to react to anyone who isn't in that group.