Dear Church Family,
While J. I. Packer ranked highly as a Christian scholar, at heart he knew he was a sinner saved by grace who joyously lived to the glory of God. Two quotes show that he rested in the wonderful doctrine of adoption for his identity and directed how he lived out his biblical theology. Like some the other quotes cited yesterday, these are worth chewing over slowly.
“There is no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with full assurance that they have known God, and God has known them, and that this relationship guarantees God’s favor to them in life, through death and on for ever.”
“Adoption is the highest privilege of the gospel. The traitor is forgiven, brought in for supper, and given the family name. To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater.”
Lest you think he was “so heavenly minded that he was of no earthly good,” here are Packer’s “6 things a Christian should tell themselves everyday”:
I am a child of God.
God is my Father.
Heaven is my home.
Every day is one day nearer.
My Savior is my brother.
Every Christian is my brother too.
Certainly preaching these truths to ourselves each day will change our attitude and the way we live.
Packer writes near the end of “Knowing God” words that reflect his desire for people to embrace the Gospel: “we saw that knowing God involves a personal relationship whereby you give yourself to God on the basis of His promise to give Himself to you. Knowing God means asking His mercy, and resting on His undertaking to forgive sinners for Jesus’s sake. Further, it means becoming a disciple of Jesus, the living Saviour who is ‘there’ today, calling the needy to Himself as He did in Galilee in the days of His flesh. Knowing God, in other words, involves faith-assent, consent, commitment-and faith expresses itself in prayer and obedience.”
Packer himself admitted that he lived up to his name by packing much truth into only a few words. On the last page of “Knowing God” these underlined words in my copy read, “Those who know God in Christ have found the secret of true freedom and true manhood.” I do not need to make any further comment. So I leave you with one more quote to chew over.
“Knowing God is a relationship calculated to thrill a man’s heart.”
With great hope,
Pastor Gillikin