A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society (The IVP Signature Collection)

by Eugene H. Peterson

and make decisions.

If we are going to live adequately and maturely as the people of God, we need more data to work from than our own experience can give us.

A Christian

who has David in his bones, Jeremiah in his bloodstream, Paul in his fingertips and Christ in his heart will know how much and how little value to put on his own momentary feelings and the experience of the past week.

Obedience is fulfilled by hope.

the danger that we should reduce Christian existence to ritually obeying a few commandments that are congenial to our temperament and convenient to our standard of living.

For Christian living demands that we keep our feet on the ground; it also asks us to make a leap of faith.

Which is exactly what we get when an accurate memory of God’s ways is combined with a lively hope in his promises.

3. Johannes Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture (London: Oxford University Press, 1926), pp. 182-99.

John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1949), 5:115.