Knowing God

by J.I. Packer

The Puritan teaching on the Christian life, so strong in other ways, was ...

Perhaps the early Methodists, and later Methodist saint...

came closest to the life of sonship as the New Testament depicts it.

There is certainly more to make of adoption in Christian teaching today.

Do I, as a Christian, understand myself? Do I know my

own real identity? My own real destiny? I am a child of God. God is my Father; heaven is my home; every day is one day nearer. My Savior is my brother; every Christian is my brother too.

Say it over and over to yourself first thing in the morn...

night, as you wait for the bus, any time when your mind is free, and ask that you may be enabled to live as one who knows it is all utterly and completely true. For this ...

This is the Christian’s secret of a Christian life, and of a...

May this secret become fully yours, a...

here are some questions by which we do well to examine ourselves again and again.

Do I understand my adoption? Do I value it? Do I daily remind myself of my

privilege as a child of God? Have I sought full assurance of my adoption? Do I daily dwel...

Do I treat God as my Father in heaven, loving, honoring and obeying him, seeking and welcoming his fellowship, and trying in everything to please him, as...

Do I think of Jesus Christ, my Savior and my Lord, as my brother too, bearing to me not only a divine authority but a...

think daily how close he is to me, how completely he understands me, and how much, as my kinsma...

Have I learned to hate the things that displ...

Am I sensitive to the evil things to which h...

Do I...

a point of avoiding them, lest I...

Do I look forward daily to that great family occasion when the children of God will finally gather in heaven before the throne of God, their Father, and ...

Have ...

the thrill of th...

Do I love my Christian brothers and sisters with whom I live day by day, in a way that I shall not be ashamed of whe...

Am I proud of my Father, and of his fa...

by his grace I...

Does the family likeness appear in me? If...

God humble us; God instruct us; God make us his o...

To many Christians, guidance is a chronic problem. Why? Not because they doubt that divine guidance is a fact, but because they are sure it is. They know that God can guide, and has promised to guide, every Christian believer.

Their fear, therefore, is

that they may miss the guidance which God provides through some...

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, Pilgrim through t...

I am weak, but Thou art mighty, Hold me with Thy powerful hand: Bread of heaven ...

—they have no doubt that God is able both to lead and to feed,

But they remain anxious, because they are not certain of their own receptiveness to the guidance God offers.

It is worthwhile, therefore, to recall at this point

some of the basic truths which divine guidance presupposes.

GOD HAS ...

Belief that divine guidance is real rests upon two foundation-facts: first, the reality of God’s plan for us; second, the abi...

Has God a plan for individuals? I...

God has a plan for each of his children.

can God communicate his plan to us? Indeed he can.

though guidance by dreams, visions and direct verbal messages must be judged exceptional and not normal, even for the

apostles and their contemporaries, yet these events do at least show that God has no difficulty in making his will known to his servants.

Scripture contains explicit promises of d...

Wisdom in Scripture always means knowledge of the course of action that will please God and secure life,

First, Christians are God’s sons;

Christians have an indwelling Instructor, the Holy Spirit.

Doubt as to the availability of guidance would be a slur on the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit to his ministry.

God seeks his glory in our lives, and he is glorified in us only when we obey his will.