110+ J. I. Packer Quotes On Prayer, Evangelical And Reformed

J. I. Packer was a British-born Canadian Christian theologian. He was known for his writing and teaching on the subjects of evangelicalism, Puritanism, and Anglicanism. He was a key figure in the modern evangelical movement and is considered one of the most influential evangelical theologians of the twentieth century. Following is our collection on famous quotes by J. I. Packer on prayer, evangelical, reformed.

Top 10 J. I. Packer Quotes

1. 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.
2. Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord.
3. Our high and privileged calling is to do the will of God in the power of God for the glory of God.
4. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away.
5. To know that nothing happens in God's world apart from God's will may frighten the godless, but it stabilizes the saints.
6. Doctrinal preaching certainly bores the hypocrites; but it is only doctrinal preaching that will save Christ's sheep.
7. What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it - the fact that He knows me.
8. The gospel tells that our Judge has become our Savior.
9. We dishonor God if we proclaim a Savior who satisfies and then go around discontent
10. Your faith will not fail while God sustains it; you are not strong enough to fall away while God is resolved to hold you.

J. I. Packer Short Quotes

• A half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth.
• What we do every time we pray is to confess our impotence and God's sovereignty.
• The Holy Spirit's main ministry is not to give thrills but to create in us Christlike character.
• The Trinity is the basis of the gospel, and the gospel is a declaration of the Trinity in action.
• Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the Incarnation.
• If one preaches the Bible biblically, one cannot help preaching the gospel all the time.
• Maturity is a compound of wisdom, goodwill, resilience, and creativity.
• The Spirit is not given to make Bible study needless, but to make it effective.
• Repentance, as we know, is basically not moaning and remorse, but turning and change.
• There is nothing more irreligious than self-absorbed religion.

J. I. Packer Quotes About Prayer

How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God? The rule for doing this is simple but demanding. It is that we turn each Truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God. — J. I. Packer

Underlying the preaching of the Puritans are three basic axioms: 1. The unique place of preaching is to convert, feed and sustain, 2. The life of the preacher must radiate the reality of what he preaches, 3. Prayer and solid Bible study are basic to effective preaching. — J. I. Packer

The more you praise, the more vigor you will have for prayer; and the more you pray, the more matter you will have for praise. — J. I. Packer

Jesus' pattern prayer, which is both crutch, road, and walking lesson for the spiritually lame like ourselves, tells us to start with God: for God matters infinitely more than we do. — J. I. Packer

We must learn to measure ourselves, not by our knowledge about God, not by our gifts and responsibilities in the church, but by how we pray and what goes on in our hearts. Many of us, I suspect, have no idea how impoverished we are at this level. Let us ask the Lord to show us. — J. I. Packer

I must ask the Lord to direct the Holy Spirit within me to drain the life out of sin and in prayer. — J. I. Packer

Confidence that one's impressions are God-given is no guarantee that this is really so, even when they persist and grow stronger through long seasons of prayer. Bible-based wisdom must judge them. — J. I. Packer

God answers the prayer we ought to have made rather than the prayer we did make. — J. I. Packer

Trying to describe what I do in prayer would be like telling the world how I make love to my wife. — J. I. Packer

J. I. Packer Quotes About Evangelical

Simple assent to the gospel, divorced from a transforming commitment to the living Christ, is by Biblical standards less than faith, and less than saving, and to elicit only assent of this kind would be to secure only false conversions. — J. I. Packer

All true theology has an evangelistic thrust, and all true evangelism is theology in action. — J. I. Packer

Our business is to present the Christian faith clothed in modern terms, not to propagate modern thought clothed in Christian terms. Confusion here is fatal. — J. I. Packer

Always and everywhere the servants of Christ are under orders to evangelize — J. I. Packer

Evangelical churches are weaker than we realize because we dont teach the confessions and doctrine. — J. I. Packer

Think against your feelings; unmask the unbelief they have nourished; let evangelical thinking correct emotional thinking. — J. I. Packer

Evangelizing includes the endeavor to elicit a response to the truth taught. — J. I. Packer

The Evangelical is not afraid of facts, for he knows that all facts are God's facts; nor is he afraid of thinking, for he knows that all truth is God's truth, and right reason cannot endanger sound faith. — J. I. Packer

But to read all Scripture narratives as if they were eye-witness reports in a modern newspaper, and to ignore the poetic and imaginative form in which they are sometimes couched, would be no less a violation of the canons of evangelical literalism than the allegorizing of the Scholastics was. — J. I. Packer

J. I. Packer Famous Quotes And Sayings

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. — J. I. Packer

There is a tremendous relief in knowing that {God's} love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion Him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench His determination to bless me. — J. I. Packer

In the New Testament grace means God's love in action towards men who merited the opposite of love. Grace means God moving heaven and earth to save sinners who could not lift a finger to save themselves. — J. I. Packer

Adoption is the highest privilege that the gospel offers: higher even than justification.. . To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater. — J. I. Packer

[N]obody can produce new evidence of your depravity that will make God change his mind. For God justified you with (so to speak) his eyes open. He knew the worst about you at the time when he accepted you for Jesus' sake; and the verdict which he passed then was, and is, final. — J. I. Packer

The Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the Incarnation. — J. I. Packer

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. — J. I. Packer

I need not torment myself with the fear that my faith may fail; as grace led me to faith in the first place, so grace will keep me believing to the end. Faith, both in its origin and continuance, is a gift of grace (Phil 1:29). — J. I. Packer

There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me. — J. I. Packer

Repentance is more than just sorrow for the past; repentance is a change of mind and heart, a new life of denying self and serving the Savior as king in self's place. — J. I. Packer

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. — J. I. Packer

What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance, and this the Christian has in a way that no other person has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God? — J. I. Packer

The Puritan ethic of marriage was first to look not for a partner whom you do love passionately at this moment but rather for one whom you can love steadily as your best friend for life, then to proceed with God’s help to do just that. — J. I. Packer

Have you been holding back from a risky, costly course to which you know in your heart God has called you? Hold back no longer. Your God is faithful to you, and adequate for you. You will never need more than He can supply, and what He supplies, both materially and spiritually, will always be enough for the present. — J. I. Packer

Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives... Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul. — J. I. Packer

Not until we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God's holiness and sovereignty...a cknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts, and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours. — J. I. Packer

God's wisdom is not, and never was, pledged to keep a fallen world happy, or to make ungodliness comfortable. — J. I. Packer

Were it not for the work of the Holy Spirit there would be no gospel, no faith, no church, no Christianity in the world at all. — J. I. Packer

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. — J. I. Packer

Grace means God sending his only Son to the cross to descend into hell so that we guilty ones might be reconciled to God and received into heaven. — J. I. Packer

The meaning of "He will give us all things" can be put thus: one day we will see that nothing - literally nothing - which could have increased our eternal happiness has been denied us, and that nothing - literally nothing - that could have reduced that happiness has been left with us. — J. I. Packer

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. — J. I. Packer

God has not abandoned us any more than he abandoned Job. He never abandons anyone on whom he has set his love; nor does Christ, the good shepherd, ever lose track of his sheep. — J. I. Packer

Joy is a condition that is experienced, but it is more than a feeling; it is, primarily, a state of mind. — J. I. Packer

The God of Israel is King of kings and Lord of lords... He know, and foreknows, all things, and his foreknowledge is foreordination; he, therefore, will have the last word, both in world history and in the destiny of every man; his kingdom and righteousness will triumph in the end, for neither men nor angels shall be able to thwart him. — J. I. Packer

There are ministers who never speak of repentance or self-denial. Naturally they are popular, but they are false prophets. — J. I. Packer

God the Father is the giver of Holy Scripture; God the Son is the theme of Holy Scripture; and God the Spirit is the author, authenticator, and interpreter of Holy Scripture. — J. I. Packer

God has spoken to man, and the Bible is his Word, given to us to make us wise unto salvation... Godliness means responding to God's revelation in trust and obedience, faith and worship, prayer and praise, submission and service. Life must be seen and lived in the light of God's Word. This, and nothing else, is true religion. — J. I. Packer

The incarnation is in itself an unfathomable mystery, but it makes sense of everything else that the New Testament contains. — J. I. Packer

When we reach the outer limit of what Scripture says, it is time to stop arguing and start worshipping. — J. I. Packer

Were I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be ADOPTION THROUGH PROPITIATION, and I do not expect ever to meet a richer or more pregnant summary of the gospel than that. — J. I. Packer

Today, on our own turf, we face pagan ignorance about God every bit as deep as that which the early church faced in the Roman Empire. — J. I. Packer

Calvary not merely made possible the salvation of those for whom Christ died; it ensured that they would be brought to faith and their salvation made actual. — J. I. Packer

The Christian's life in all its aspects-intellectual and ethical, devotional and relational, upsurging in worship and outgoing in witness-is supernatural; only the Spirit can initiate and sustain it. So apart from him, not only will there be no lively believers and no lively congregations, there will be no believers and no congregations at all. — J. I. Packer

We need to discover all over again that worship is natural to the Christian, as it was to the godly Israelites who wrote the psalms, and that the habit of celebrating the greatness and graciousness of God yields an endless flow of thankfulness, joy, and zeal. — J. I. Packer

The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity--hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory--because at the Father's will Jesus became poor, and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross. — J. I. Packer

Men treat God's sovereignty as a theme for controversy, but in Scripture it is matter for worship. — J. I. Packer

Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded. — J. I. Packer

The grace of God is love freely shown toward guilty sinners, contrary to their merit and indeed in defiance of their demerit. — J. I. Packer

Revival is the visitation of God which brings to life Christians who have been sleeping and restores a deep sense of God's near presence and holiness. Thence springs a vivid sense of sin and a profound exercise of heart in repentance, praise, and love, with an evangelistic outflow. — J. I. Packer

There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, He wants me as His friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given His Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose. not merely that we know God, but that He knows us. — J. I. Packer

The Life of true holiness is rooted in the soil of awed adoration — J. I. Packer

Scripture is the most up-to-date and relevant reading that ever comes my way. — J. I. Packer

To know God's love is indeed heaven on earth. — J. I. Packer

The unceasing activity of the Creator whereby, in overflowing bounty and goodwill, He upholds His creatures in ordered existence, guides and governs all events, circumstances, and free acts of angels and men, and directs everything to its appointed goal, for His own glory. — J. I. Packer

The task of the church is to make the invisible Kingdom visible through faithful Christian living and witness-bearing . — J. I. Packer

God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. — J. I. Packer

A little knowledge OF God is worth more than a great deal of knowledge ABOUT him. — J. I. Packer

The Christian's instinct of trust and worship are stimulated very powerfully by knowledge of the greatness of God. — J. I. Packer

We meet God through entering into a relationship both of dependance on Jesus as our Saviour and Friend and of discipleship to Him as our Lord and Master. — J. I. Packer

God in his wisdom, to make and keep us humble and to teach us to walk by faith, has hidden from us almost everything that we should like to know about the providential purposes which he is working out in the churches and in our own lives. — J. I. Packer

Any theology that does not lead to song is, at a fundamental level, a flawed theology. — J. I. Packer

The way to be truly happy is to be truly human, and the way to be truly human is to be truly godly. — J. I. Packer

The gift of sonship to God becomes ours not through being born, but through being born again. — J. I. Packer

Adoption is the highest privilege the gospel offers. — J. I. Packer

My advice to a new husband is nothing more than 'husbands, love your wives.' And 'love your wife as Christ has loved the church.' Never forget that you are Christ's representative in serving your wife. — J. I. Packer

Pelagianism is the natural heresy of zealous Christians who are not interested in theology. — J. I. Packer

Read two old books for every new one. — J. I. Packer

God's love is an exercise of his goodness toward sinners who merit only condemnation. — J. I. Packer

For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God? — J. I. Packer

The most excellent study of expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and Him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. — J. I. Packer

Our aim in studying the Godhead must be to know God himself better. Our concern must be to enlarge our acquaintance, not simply with the doctrine of God’s attributes, but with the living God whose attributes they are. — J. I. Packer

The character of God is today, and always will be, exactly what it was in Bible times. — J. I. Packer

The worlds greatest need is the personal holiness of Christian people. — J. I. Packer

Sanctification has a double aspect. Its positive side is vivification, the growing and maturing of the new man; its negative side is mortification, the weakening and killing of the old man. — J. I. Packer

It is staggering that God should love sinners, yet it is true. — J. I. Packer

To mend our own relationship with God, regaining God's favor after having once lost it, is beyond the power of any one of us. And one must see and bow to this before one can share the biblical faith in God's grace. — J. I. Packer

Think against your feelings; argue yourself out of the gloom they have spread; look up from your problems to the God of the gospel. — J. I. Packer

We approach Scripture with minds already formed by the mass of accepted opinions and viewpoints with which we have come into contact, in both the Church and the world....It is easy to be unaware that it has happened; it is hard even to begin to realize how profoundly tradition in this sense has moulded us. — J. I. Packer

Creatures are not entitled to register complaints about their Creator. — J. I. Packer

The peace of God is first and foremost peace with God; it is the state of affairs in which God, instead of being against us, is for us. No account of God's peace which does not start here can do other than mislead. — J. I. Packer

Certainly true worship invigorates, but to plan invigoration is not necessarily to order worship. — J. I. Packer

Moreover, the whole purpose of God's mighty acts is to bring man to know Him by faith; and Scripture knows no foundation for faith but the spoken word of God, inviting our trust in Him on the basis of what He has done for us. — J. I. Packer

It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the most profound unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. God became man; Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the incarnation. — J. I. Packer

Christian minds have been conformed to the modern spirit: the spirit, that is, that spawns great thoughts of man and leaves room for only small thoughts of God. — J. I. Packer

You thank God [for your salvation] because "you do not attribute your repenting and believing to your own wisdom, or prudence, or sound judgment, or good sense. — J. I. Packer

Real spiritual growth is always growth downward, so to speak, into profounder humility, which in healthy souls will become more and more apparent as they age. — J. I. Packer

A simple Bible reader and sermon hearer who is full of the Holy Spirit will develop a far deeper acquaintance with his God and Savior than a more learned scholar who is content with being theologically correct. — J. I. Packer

You can know a lot about God and godliness and still not know God. — J. I. Packer

Holy people glory, not in their holiness, but in Christ's cross; for the holiest saint is never more than a justified sinner and never sees himself in any other way. — J. I. Packer

If I were the devil I should broadcast doubts about the truths and relevance and good sense and straightforwardness of the Bible ... At all costs I should want to keep them from using their minds in a disciplined way to get the measure of its message. — J. I. Packer

There are two sorts of sick consciences, those that are not aware enough of sin and those that are not aware enough of pardon. — J. I. Packer

The most universally awesome experience that mankind knows is to stand alone on a clear night and look at the stars. It was God who first set the stars in space; He is their Maker and Master . . . such are His power and His majesty. — J. I. Packer

His purpose is simply to draw us closer to Himself in conscious communion with Him. — J. I. Packer

I'm not against technology, but all tools should be used to their best advantage. We should be spending our time on things that have staying power, instead of on the latest thought of the latest blogger - and then moving on quickly to the next blogger. — J. I. Packer

One of the many divine qualities of the Bible is that it does not yield its secrets to the irreverent and the censorious. — J. I. Packer

Life Lessons by J. I. Packer

1. J. I. Packer taught that a life of faith and devotion to God should be lived through the lens of grace and humility.
2. He emphasized that we should strive to live a life of obedience to God's will and to be a witness for Christ in all aspects of our life.
3. He also taught that we should be diligent in our pursuit of knowledge and understanding of God's word, and to use it to grow closer to God and to serve Him faithfully.