Then I read Ch. 22. This is the chapter that prompted this post. I will quote some passages, but first some background: Packer is unpacking (sorry could not resist) Paul's words in Romans 8:32-35. Verse 32: "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" Commenting on this, Packer writes, "We are unlike the Christians of New Testament times. Our approach to life is conventional and static; theirs was not. The thought of "safety first" was not a drag on their enterprise as it is on ours... Why are we not free enough from fear and anxiety to allow ourselves to go full stretch in following Christ?... in our heart of hearts we are afraid of the consequences of going the whole way into the Christian life... We feel that the risks of out-and-out discipleship are too great for us to take... we are not persuaded of the adequacy of God to provide for all the needs of those who launch out wholeheartedly on the deep sea of unconventional living in obedience to the call of Christ... we feel obliged to break the first commandment just a little, by withdrawing a certain amount of our time and energy from serving God in order to serve mammon (italics added)... let us call a spade a spade. The name of the game we are playing is unbelief (italics in original), and Paul's "he will give us all things " stands as a rebuke to us... Are we, perhaps, still assuming that a person's life consists, partly at any rate, in the things he possesses?" Packer says we live this way, "out of unbelief, pure and simple."
"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..."
Give yourself a blessing, read Knowing God.
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