Knowing God’s Purpose for Your Life
Overview
If the desire to know God’s guidance is a sign of spiritual health, then this meaty devotional is a sure prescription for a vigorous spiritual appetite. In daily bite-sized chunks, J. I. Packer offers a soul-satisfying menu of profound meditations designed to bring delight to the heart and strength to the spirit. Expertly mixing Scripture, choice excerpts from J. I. Packer’s many books, and providing appropriate application, Knowing God’s Purpose for Your Life features the best of J. I. Packer’s theological musings in a powerful and practical format. Each month covers a new topic and points you back to the fountain of all true joy and lasting delight: God Himself. Grow closer to God as you discover His magnificent purpose for your life.
Top Highlights
“What seems to me the wisest thing ever said about the five Wisdom books of the Old Testament is this: the Psalms teach you how to pray, Proverbs how to live, Job how to suffer, the Song of Solomon how to love, and Ecclesiastes how to enjoy. That’s good philosophy given under God for our learning and our blessing.” (Page 56)
“When God’s people cease to be on watch against the world, they are already in its grip, and continuous weakening is all that can be expected as long as this negligence lasts. Meantime, worldly-mindedness, thus induced, will be leading to broken vows and broken lives.” (Page 113)
“Professional identity then eats up personal identity, so that one is no longer closely related to anyone, neither to people nor to God. So one is lonely. Even worse, since life is relationships, and behind one’s mask one has distanced oneself from relationships, one is shrinking rather than growing as a person. And one cannot grow in grace while one is shrinking overall. All Christians need God’s help to know who they are and to live with Him and with their own human intimates in honesty, integrity, and vulnerability. But Christian professionals need this help most of all.” (Page 116)
“society does not seem to be true at all. Biblical holiness is unambiguously worldly.” (Page 177)
“Scripture tells us that God gives strength for three things: endurance of strain and pressure, fidelity in serving God and others, and resistance to satanic wiles. The Lord Jesus, who showed this threefold strength to perfection in the days of His flesh, now from His throne imparts it to those who are alive in Him. In them the moral and spiritual instincts of Jesus’ holy character now seek active expression, and the Holy Spirit acts in their actions to work in them the good works in which the expression of these instincts is seen. But this becomes reality only when Christians feel too weak, mentally, morally, spiritually, and maybe physically too, to rise to the demands of each situation.” (Page 157)
- Title: Knowing God’s Purpose for Your Life
- Author: J. I. Packer
- Publisher: Regal
- Print Publication Date: 2004
- Logos Release Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Devotional calendars; Christian life › Meditations
- ISBNs: 9781441228130, 0830736859, 9781441224293, 1441228136, 9780830736850, 1441224297
- Resource ID: LLS:KNWNGGDSPRPYRLF
- Resource Type: Calendar Devotional
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T01:02:56Z
J. I. Packer (1926–2020) is regarded as one of the most influential evangelicals in North America. He was Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and his writings include books such as Knowing God, A Quest for Godliness, Growing in Christ (Crossway) and Rediscovering Holiness. He preached and lectured widely in Great Britain and North America and served as general editor of the English Standard Version of the Bible published in 2001, and theological editor of the Study Bible version. In 2014, Packer was named Author of the Year by the Association of Logos Bookstores. He was a frequent contributor to and an executive editor of Christianity Today and wrote numerous articles published in journals such as Churchman, SouthWestern Journal, Reformation Revival Journal and Touchstone. He received a BA, MA and PhD from Oxford University.