Walking the Life

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J. I. Packer aptly describes the abundant life:

It is the life of regeneration, repentance, and assured faith and hope in Christ,
based on knowing oneself to be a justified and adopted child of God
whom the Triune Lord has loved from eternity,
whom the Son has redeemed by dying on the cross,
and whom the Holy Spirit, the divine change agent, now indwells.
It is the life of loving both the written Word of the Lord
and the living Lord of the Word.
It is a life of rigorous self-watch and self-discipline,
for the deforming, distracting, desensitizing, demonic power of sin
in one’s spiritual system must be detected and resisted.
It is a life of reckoning with our temperamental limitations,
whatever mixture of sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic we find we are, and seeking to transcend those shortcomings.
It is a life of prayer—
praise and petition;
complaint
and confession;
meditation and celebration.
And with that it is a quest for full Christlikeness of character and action,
inasmuch as Christ “exhibited to the world such an illustrious pattern of humility, divine love,
discreet zeal,
self-denial,
obedience,
patience,
resignation,
fortitude,
meekness,
forgiveness,
compassion,
benevolence,
and universal holiness,
as neither men nor angels ever saw before.” 1
Finally, religion honors God by goodwill and integrity in all relationships
and by enterprise in seizing such opportunities for “good works” of benevolence and help as present themselves.

Beautifully said.

1 Jonathan Edwards, “The Life and Diary of the Rev. David Brainerd,” Works, ed. Hickman, 2:313 as quoted in A God Entranced Vision of All Things, edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor (Crossway Books, Wheaton, Illinois, 2004), 95.

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