Last night at our evening fellowship, we continued, as is our practice, reading aloud together from J. I. Packer's book Knowing God. As he discusses Romans, especially the eighth chapter, Packer drove home the greatness of what God has given us.
While I "know" this, it struck me afresh that in my current circumstances, when I am likely to grieve the losses in my life, I often forget that none of these things is really worth grieving, and that all that is worthwhile is yet available to me. Packer discuses Romans 8:31-32 (What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?) in this way:
But we shall come closest to Paul's mind if we understand this phrase as prompted...by Paul's special brand of pastoral logic, which counters by anticipating wrong inferences that his readers might otherwise draw. The wrong inference which he was countering in verse 1...was that the Christian's sins of infirmity may endanger God's continued acceptance of him; the wrong inference that he is countering here is that following Christ will mean the loss of things worth having, uncompensated by any corresponding gain--which, if true, would make Christian discipleship like the Roundheads in 1066 and All That, "right but repulsive." Paul's assurance that with Christ God will give us "all things" corrects this inference by anticipation, for it proclaims the adequacy of God as sovereign benefactor, whose was with his servants leaves no ground for any sense of fear of real personal impoverishment at any stage...
~Packer, Knowing God, p.266
Those are great thoughts to ponder this week!
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