Reply To: Knowing God, Chapters 21 & 22

Misapplied doctrine, “unreality toward God”, keeps us from truly ‘knowing God’. Stressing the rough side of Christian life, playing down the bright side or vice versa. “God can bring good out of the extremes of our own folly; He actively uses our sins and mistakes towards His ends. He is very gentle with very young Christians, encouraging and establishing them in ‘the life’. But as they grow stronger He exposes them to testing to build character, strengthen faith and prepare us to help others, thus glorifying Himself. By exposing them to strong attacks from the world, the flesh and the devil, so that our power of resistance might grow greater, leaving our spiritual infancy behind, He continues to work out His grace in those He loves.” (Boy did I need that encouragement presently, praise Him!) I love how Packer uses
the beautiful, poignant words in hymns to bring home his points.

And I love how he concludes with a culminating review of his book, using the Book of Romans, “the high point of scripture”, to highlight his points as well as offering a perspective to read and understand Paul’s letter. Packer outlines Paul’s four thoughts that really drive home who God is: He is for us, gives us all good things, including sacrificing His Son (dare we ask for more; we will never need more than He can supply), He justifies us and no one can separate us from His perfect, divine love. We are to respond by yielding to Him as ‘slaves of righteousness’ and obedience, ‘the best measure of a spiritual life’. “Those who know God in Christ have found the secret of true freedom and true humanity; the true priority for any human being (should be) learning to know God in Christ.” Amen!