Inspirational Quotes by J.I. Packer

“The Greek and Roman world of New Testament times had never dreamed of such love; its gods were often credited with lusting after women, but never with loving sinners; and the New Testament writers had to introduce what was virtually a new Greek word, agapē, to express the love of God as they knew it.”

“Thus, God’s love, as the Bible views it, never leads him to foolish, impulsive, immoral actions in the way that its human counterpart too often leads us. And in the same way, God’s wrath in the Bible is never the capricious, self-indulgent, irritable, morally ignoble thing that human anger so often is.”

“He had to be made like his brothers in every way. . . . Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. . . . For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb 2:17-18; 4:15-16).”

“It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians—I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians—go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord’s parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that God might meet those needs) averting their eyes and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians—alas, they are many—whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the submiddle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.”

“The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor—spending and being spent—to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others—and not just their own friends—in whatever way there seems need.”

“God is immutable and can never cease to be what he is.”

“1. We must learn to reverence God. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps 111: 10; Prov 9: 10; compare Job 28: 28; Prov 1: 7; 15: 33). Not till we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God’s holiness and sovereignty (“ the great and awesome God,” Neh 1: 5; compare 4: 14; 9: 32; Deut 7: 21; 10: 17; Ps 99: 3; Jer 20: 11), acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours.”

“we may think of religious art from a cultural standpoint, we should not look to pictures of God to show us his glory and move us to worship; for his glory is precisely what such pictures can never show us. And”

“God’s love is an exercise of his goodness”

“2. We must learn to receive God’s word. Wisdom is divinely wrought in those, and those only, who apply themselves to God’s revelation. “Your commands make me wiser than my enemies,” declares the psalmist; “I have more insight than all my teachers”—why?—“ for I meditate on your statutes” (Ps 119: 98-99).”

“God’s love is an exercise of his goodness toward sinners.”

“Seventeenth-century Arminians and deists, like sixteenth-century Socinians, came to deny, as against Reformation theology, that God’s control of his world was either direct or complete, and theology, philosophy and science have for the most part combined to maintain that denial ever since.”

“God’s love is an exercise of his goodness toward individual sinners.”

“The exercise of God’s love toward individual sinners in time is the execution of his purpose to bless those same individual sinners—a purpose which he formed in eternity.”

“For an example of what the first step involves, look at Psalm 139, where the psalmist meditates on the infinite and unlimited nature of God’s presence, and knowledge, and power, in relation to people. We are always in God’s presence, he says. You can cut yourself off from your fellow human beings, but you cannot get away from your Creator. “You hem me in—behind and before. . . . Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens [the sky], you are there; if I make my bed in the depths [the underworld], you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,” I still cannot escape from the presence of God: “even there your hand will guide me” (vv. 5-10). Nor can darkness, which hides me from human sight, shield me from God’s gaze (vv. 11-12). And just as there are no bounds to his presence with me, so there are no limits to his knowledge of me. Just as I am never left alone, so I never go unnoticed. “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise [all my actions and movements]; you perceive my thoughts [all that goes on in my mind] from afar. . . . You are familiar with all my ways [all my habits, plans, aims, desires, as well as all my life to date]. Before a word is on my tongue [spoken, or meditated] you know it completely, O LORD” (vv. 1-4). I can hide my heart, and my past, and my future plans, from those around me, but I cannot hide anything from God. I can talk in a way that deceives my fellow creatures as to what I really am, but nothing I say or do can deceive God. He sees through all my reserve and pretense; he knows me as I really am, better indeed than I know myself.”

“God’s love to sinners involves his identifying himself with their welfare.”

“We need to ask ourselves: What is my ultimate aim and object in occupying my mind with these things? What do I intend to do with my knowledge about God, once I have it? For the fact that we have to face is this: If we pursue theological knowledge for its own sake, it is bound to go bad on us. It will make us proud and conceited.”

“To live wisely, you have to be clear-sighted and realistic—ruthlessly so—in looking at life as it is.”

“To be preoccupied with getting theological knowledge as an end in itself, to approach Bible study with no higher a motive than a desire to know all the answers, is the direct route to a state of self-satisfied self-deception. We need to guard our hearts against such an attitude, and pray to be kept from it.”

“God’s love to sinners was expressed by the gift of his Son to be their Savior.”