Knowing God
J.I. Packer
IVP 1993
Americanized Version
Ch 2 – The People Who Know Their God
Pg. 28 “People who know their God are before anything else
people who pray, and the first point where their zeal and energy for God’s
glory come[s] to expression is in their prayers. In Daniel 9 we read how, when
the prophet “understood from the scriptures” (v. 2) that the foretold time of
Israel’s captivity was drawing to an end, and when at the same time he realized
that the nation’s sin was still such as to provoke God to judgement rather than
mercy, he set himself to seek God “in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth
and ashes” (v. 3) and prayed for the restoring of Jerusalem with a vehemence
and passion and agony of spirit to which most of us are complete strangers.
Yet the invariable fruit of true knowledge of God is energy
to pray for God’s cause – energy, indeed, which can only find an outlet and a
relief of inner tension when channeled into such prayer – and the more
knowledge, the more energy! By this we may test ourselves. Perhaps we are not
in a position to make public gestures against ungodliness and apostasy. Perhaps
we are old, or ill, or otherwise limited by our physical situation. But we can
all pray about the ungodliness and apostasy which we see in everyday life all
around us. If, however, there is in us little energy for such prayer, and
little consequent practice of it, this is a sure sign that as yet we scarcely
know our God.”
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