Marshall Segal Photo

Marshall Segal

Marshall Segal serves as President & CEO of Desiring God. He’s the author of Not Yet Married: The Pursuit of Joy in Singleness & Dating. He graduated from Bethlehem College and Seminary, and serves as deacon at Cities Church. He and his wife, Faye, have three children and live in Minneapolis.

The First Noël

The joy Jesus brings is a joy for the whole world. To prepare for Christmas, listen to Shane & Shane sing The First Noël and read a meditation written for the carol.

Be a Yoda, Not a Grinch

Be a Yoda, Not a Grinch

In the next few days, Star Wars and Christmas return. It gives us an opportunity to ask how these two fictional characters might help us live and serve like Jesus.

What Comes After Thanksgiving?

What Comes After Thanksgiving?

Many Thanksgiving celebrations will express genuine gratitude and yet be offensive to God. Appreciation without affection and devotion makes God a tool or a machine to produce the things we really love. Instead, see your gratitude to God through to greater faith in him and greater love for him.

Six Questions to Ask When Studying the Bible in a Group

Six Questions to Ask When Studying the Bible in a Group

How do you read the Bible when you read it with other people? Here are six questions you might ask when you open the Bible together.

Satan Hunts Among the Hurting

Satan Hunts Among the Hurting

Mountain lions detect vulnerabilities in their prey and attack the weakest. The enemy of your hope and happiness hunts with that same instinct.

The Old Me Made New

The Old Me Made New

The cross was the greatest price ever paid. But what did Jesus buy with his blood? Far too many Christians settle for far too little from God’s. Yes, he forgives us, but he also makes us new. Read the meditation, and stream a song from Shane & Shane specifically written for Psalm 51.

The Joy of Living in Jesus’s Shadow

The Joy of Living in Jesus’s Shadow

One key to happiness is learning the joy and freedom of being found in Jesus’s shadow. John the Baptist, one of the most important men in history, joyfully retreated to the background when Christ came. We all need to learn that kind of fearless, hardworking, full-hearted rest and humility.

Home Alone

The Lies That Tie Us to Our Phone

The same device that connects us with people all over the world alienates us from those just across the room. At least two lies keep us tied to our phones.

Take Every Task Captive Today

Take Every Task Captive Today

The most dangerous thing about tomorrow is the temptation to forget God, to live and talk and act as if God doesn’t exist. It’s the greatest danger any day: to live our daily lives — our daily habits, daily work…

A Big God Will Eclipse Every Pain

A Big God Will Eclipse Every Pain

Often the moments of life we feel most helpful are when sitting with friends or family who are suffering. What’s the first thing you say to someone in your life who’s experiencing significant grief or has received tragic news? The Bible’s approach to pain may surprise you.

A Worship Song Worthy of Eternity

A Worship Song Worthy of Eternity

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and…

Three Prayers for Your Heart

Three Prayers for Your Heart

In three short videos, John Piper walks through a prayer from God for us in Psalm 141. He pulls out several key points for our prayer lives, teaching us to call on God to move, first to meet us, then to guard and keep us, and finally to fill and satisfy us.

Next-Door Strangers

Next-Door Strangers

For all that technology has done to connect us with people around the world, it’s put miles between next-door neighbors. It almost feels like you need to book a flight. Face-to-face friendship is a lost art that’s critical to loving the lost, and it’s never too late to be a better neighbor.

Pain: A Secret Garden of Pride

Pain: A Secret Garden of Pride

In our pain, we can reject comfort from those who haven’t experienced our suffering. But God can speak as deeply to our pain through sympathy as he can through empathy.

Hope for the Unhappily Single

Hope for the Unhappily Single

The good news for not-yet-married Christians is that no one in Christ is single, and no one in heaven is married.

It Is Well

For Horatio Spafford, Christ was the key to suffering well. Only his love for Jesus was able to carry him across the most violent waves of life.

Sex: The Frontrunner for President

Sex: The Frontrunner for President

One decision determines the fate of the American people every four years: Who will be our next president? The candidates are pouring in, and the race is heating up. So who’s the favorite? Sex. Sex has won far too many elections, but it cannot satisfy like God or save like his grace.

Designed for Joy

Designed for Joy

How the Gospel Impacts Men and Women, Identity and Practice

God created men and women in his image — equal in value and complementary in roles, which are integral to God’s good design for humanity.

Too Depressed to Believe What We Know

Too Depressed to Believe What We Know

Eleven Resources for the Darkness

We’ve collected some of our best resources on depression, as well as a few others around the web. We pray they will bring God’s light into your darkness.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Christians are often divided because we are by nature defensive. Too many divisions in the church — specifically in personal relationships — stem from insecurity and defensiveness in the face of accusation, whether real or imagined. These accusations may fall…

No Sore Losers on Sunday

No Sore Losers on Sunday

Singing Despite the Court’s Decision

We head to church this weekend with heavy hearts. The cloud of the Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 decision hangs over our corporate worship — and we don’t even yet know or feel all the consequences of the historic decision.

When Leaders Fall, All Are Punished

When Leaders Fall, All Are Punished

Too often, we see the news of another pastor or leader who has fallen into some moral failure. Their disqualification can be devastating to their followers. But are the consequences for the congregations even deeper and more serious than we feel at first?

Inside Out, Right-Side Up

Inside Out, Right-Side Up

The Roots of Real Joy

Inside Out, the latest creation from Pixar, enters the mind of eleven-year-old Riley, and personifies her five dominant emotions: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. The five characters in Riley’s head, led by Joy, man a control panel that…

Binge-Eating, But Starving

Binge-Eating, But Starving

The world offers us pleasure on pleasure, but they never fill the hunger we feel deep inside. So many of us are binge-eating, frantically consuming everything we can in this life, not knowing that day by day we’re hungrier than we’ve ever been. The cravings are a mercy meant to lead us to God.

My All in All

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. (Matthew 13:44) Lots of people are…

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