Want to Feel Challenged?

Here are two challenging words I've come across recently:

1. From John Piper: Ever wonder why 1 Peter 3:15 (Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have) has lost its applicability? When is the last time someone asked you the reason for your hope within? The reason no one is asking is that it looks like we are hoping in the same things that they are hoping in (jobs, savings accounts, family, friends, etc.). We need to live lives and utilize our money/time/family/etc. in such a way as it makes people ask because it is clear that our hope is not in what their hope is in.

2. This, from Anthony Bradley: He wonders how there can be 115,000 orphans in the US while there are 224 million Christians.