I've been reading this book by Packer called Keep in Step with the Spirit. It is high time I shared a quote or two from the dozens I've been marking in the margins...
"What the Corinthians had to realize, and what some today may need to relearn, is that, as the Puritan John Owen put it, there can be gifts without graces; that is, one may be capable of performances that benefit others spiritually and yet be a stranger oneself to the Spirit-wrought inner transformation that true knowledge of God brings. The manifestation of the Spirit in charismatic performance is not the same thing as the fruit of the Spirit in Christlike character (see Gal. 5:22–23), and there may be much of the former with little or none of the latter. You can have many gifts and few graces; you can even have genuine gifts and no genuine graces at all, as did Balaam, Saul, and Judas." (p. 31)
"My argument is that any mind-set which treats the Spirit’s gifts (ability and willingness to run around and do things) as more important than his fruit (Christlike character in personal life) is spiritually wrongheaded and needs correcting." (p 33)
"The Christian who thus walks in the Spirit will keep discovering that nothing in his life is as good as it should be; that he has never fought as hard as he might have done against the clogging restraints and contrary pulls of his own inbred perversity; that there is an element of motivational sin, at least, in his best works; that his daily living is streaked with defilements, so that he has to depend every moment on God’s pardoning mercy in Christ, or he would be lost; and that he needs to keep asking, in the light of his own felt weakness and inconstancy of heart, that the Spirit will energize him to the end to maintain the inward struggle." (p. 37)
"Jesus Christ is what he is to believers (divine-human Savior, Lord, mediator, shepherd, advocate, prophet, priest, king, atoning sacrifice, life, hope, and so forth), irrespective of how much or how little of this multiple relationship they have with him is clear to their minds. An apostolic theologian like Paul, for instance, had it all far clearer in his mind than did the penitent thief of Luke 23:39–43; yet Jesus’s saving ministry was as rich to the one as to the other, and we may be sure that at this very moment the two of them, the apostle and the bandit, are together before the throne, their differences in theological expertise on earth making no difference whatsoever to their enjoyment of Christ in heaven." (p. 42)
Page 49 is too long to quote, but offers a rather fundamental three-fold definition of the role of the Spirit.
"If no regular, identifiable spiritual benefit for others or ourselves results from what we do, we should not think of our capacity to do it as a spiritual gift." (p 85)
"It seems however that the activist spirit has infected us all. When, for instance, we think of the pastor's role and choose men to minister in our churches, we habitually rate skills above sanctity and dynamism above devotion, as if we did not know that power in ministry stems from the man behind the ministry rather than from the particular things he can do." (p 98)
"Repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God, and as our knowledge grows at these three points so our practice of repentance has to be enlarged." (p 104)
"Sanctification is not usually a comfortable process, and inner ease is not to be expected while it goes on." (p 117)
"Remember also that holiness is the precondition of usefulness to God: 2 Timothy 2:21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work." (p 120)
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