James Innell Packer (1926 – 2020) was an influential author, professor, and theologian.
According to the website thegospelcoalition.org: “Throughout his nearly 70 years of writing and ministry, he stressed the importance of knowing and praying to and communing with the triune God. He called for the church to take holiness and repentance seriously by walking in the Spirit and fighting against indwelling sin. He defended biblical authority and championed the cause of disciple-making catechesis. And he reintroduced multiple generations to his beloved Puritan forebears, whom he regarded as the Redwoods of the Christian faith.”1
Packer came to faith as an eighteen-year-old student at Oxford University while attending an evangelistic service. Packer was a prolific writer and also served on the translation board of the English Standard Version of the Bible. In 2005 Time listed him as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals. He lived a simple life and was considered by many a modern-day Puritan.
Near the end of his life, he was once asked how he might want to be remembered after his death. I loved his answer: “As I look back on the life that I have lived, I would like to be remembered as a voice—a voice that focused on the authority of the Bible, the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the wonder of his substitutionary sacrifice and atonement for our sins.”2
Of all of his insightful quotes, I pray that these ones below will help you realize the importance of living a holy life just like the Puritans he held in such high esteem.3
“There’s a difference between knowing God and knowing about God. When you truly know God, you have energy to serve Him, boldness to share Him, and contentment in Him.”
“Our high and privileged calling is to do the will of God in the power of God for the glory of God.”
“God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependence on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away. To live with your ‘thorn’ uncomplainingly — that is, sweet, patient, and free in heart to love and help others, even though every day you feel weak — is true sanctification. It is true healing for the spirit. It is a supreme victory of grace.”
“The healthy Christian is not necessarily the extrovert, ebullient Christian, but the Christian who has a sense of God’s presence stamped deep on his soul, who trembles at God’s word, who lets it dwell in him richly by constant meditation upon it, and who tests and reforms his life daily in response to it.”
“What were we made for? To know God. What aim should we have in life? To know God. What is the eternal life that Jesus gives? To know God. What is the best thing in life? To know God. What in humans gives God most pleasure? Knowledge of himself.”
“Wait on the Lord” is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come.”
“Even when we cannot see the why and wherefore of God’s dealings, we know that there is love in and behind them, and so we can rejoice always.”
“Living becomes an awesome business when you realize that you spend every moment of your life in the sight and company of an omniscient, omnipresent Creator.”
“What God does in time, He planned from eternity. And all that He planned in eternity He carries out in time.”
“The Son of God came to seek us where we are in order that he might bring us to be with him where he is.”
“The simple statement, ‘God is for us’, is in truth one of the richest and weightiest utterances that the Bible contains.”
“Repentance, as we know, is basically not moaning and remorse, but turning and change.”
“Christ had no interest in gathering vast crowds of professed adherents who would melt away as soon as they found out what following Him actually demanded of them. In our own presentation of Christ’s gospel, therefore, we need to lay a similar stress on the cost of following Christ and make sinners face it soberly before we urge them to respond to the message of free forgiveness. In common honesty, we must not conceal the fact that free forgiveness in one sense will cost everything.”
“Not until we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God’s holiness and sovereignty…acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts, and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours.”
“The stars may fall, but God’s promises will stand and be fulfilled.”
“Scripture sees hell as self-chosen. . . Hell appears as God’s gesture of respect for human choice. All receive what they actually chose. Either to be with God forever, worshipping Him, or without God forever, worshipping themselves.”
“The battle against pride in the heart is lifelong, so humility should become an ever more deeply seated attitude of living.”
“One of the many divine qualities of the Bible is that it does not yield its secrets to the irreverent and the censorious.”
“There are ministers who never speak of repentance or self-denial. Naturally they are popular, but they are false prophets.”
“Revelation does not mean man finding God, but God finding man, God sharing His secrets with us, God showing us Himself. In revelation, God is the agent as well as the object.”
“The truth is that, though we were justified by faith alone, the faith that justifies is never alone (it always produces fruit, ‘good works,’…a transformed life).”
“If I were the devil, one of my first aims would be to stop folk from digging into the Bible.”
“What we do every time we pray is to confess our impotence and God’s sovereignty.”
1 J. I. Packer (1926–2020) (thegospelcoalition.org)
2 J. I. Packer (1926–2020) (thegospelcoalition.org)
3 All of these quotes are from the following website:
TOP 25 QUOTES BY J. I. PACKER (of 236) | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)