Good Packer Quotes & Sayings

Optimism hopes for the best without any guarantee of its arriving and is often no more than whistling in the dark. Christian hope, by contrast, is faith looking ahead to the fulfillment of the promises of God, as when the Anglican burial service inters the corpse 'in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.' Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself. Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God's own commitment, that the best is yet to come. — J.I. Packer

There is unspeakable comfort in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. — J.I. Packer

Our task is to take suffering in stride, not as if it is a pleasure (it isn't), but in the knowledge that God will not let it overwhelm us and that He will use it, by His own supernatural alchemy, to three good ends, at least. 1) Our suffering produces character; 2) Our suffering glorifies God; 3) Suffering fulfills the law of the harvest (John 12:24), Rediscovering Holiness by J.I. Packer, pgs. 232-239. — J.I. Packer

I'm a very good packer, but I probably take too much in the way of toiletries. You only really need a toothbrush, as most places you go to have a bar of soap and some shampoo. — Laurence Fox

We need more filmmakers of color telling the story. I'd like to see more filmmakers take their products out independently, put together a good commercial film and distribute it online. — Will Packer

I genuinely believe if we get the chance to do something in Sydney, the people of Australia will win out of that proposal. There will be jobs, taxes, tourism - there'll be more people coming to Australia looking to spend money and I think that is a good thing. — James Packer

The good news is there's no devil. The bad news is there's no heaven. There's nothing. — Kerry Packer

We may live in concrete nests piled on top of each other, we may file in and out of our planes and freeways in neat lines, but we are making it all up as we go along. An ant is born into a complex chemical environment where every small instruction had been laid down in advance. Mother tells the workers what to do and they do everything for the greater good of their enormous family.
In contrast, every human being is capable of working for the advancement of their own procreating, their own minuscule families. Yet we somehow recognize the value of a larger form of society, and readily respond to a larger world beyond our own narrow self-interests. With our unique creative capacity, we have modified ourselves as we have modified our physical conditions, and we have developed an extraordinary division of labor. You and I may be as different as night and day, but that is our strength, and it is precisely this diversification that makes my time in Africa so intensely satisfying. — Craig Packer

Richard Baxter: Ye saints, who toil below, Adore your heavenly King, And onward as ye go Some joyful anthem sing. Take what He gives, And praise Him still Through good and ill Who ever lives. — J.I. Packer

Who can pray this request and mean it? Only he who looks at the whole of life from this point of view. Such a man will not fall into the trap of superspirituality, so concentrating on God's redemption as to disregard his creation; people like that, however devoted and well-meaning, are unearthly in more senses than one, and injure their own humanity. Instead, he will see everything as stemming ultimately from the Creator's hand, and therefore as fundamentally good and fascinating, whatever man may have made of it (beauty, sex, nature, children, arts, crafts, food, games, no less than theology and church things). Then in thankfulness and joy he will so live as to help others see life's values, and praise God for them, as he does. Supremely in this drab age, hallowing God's name starts here, with an attitude of gratitude for the goodness of the creation. — J.I. Packer

Anybody who thinks factory jobs were good jobs needs to go visit somebody on a line," she said. "Most people wouldn't survive in a factory. Mitt Romney would die in a week. — George Packer

Guidance, like all God's acts of blessing under the covenant of grace, is a sovereign act. Not merely does God will to guide us in the sense of showing us his way, that we may tread it; he wills also to guide us in the more fundamental sense of ensuring that, whatever happens, whatever mistakes we may make, we shall come safely home. Slippings and strayings there will be, no doubt, but the everlasting arms are beneath us; we shall be caught, rescued, restored. This is God's promise; this is how good he is. — J.I. Packer

This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort - the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates-in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me. There is, certainly, great cause for — J.I. Packer

Business is good right now, but now my personal life is a disaster. — James Packer

Good works begin with praise, worship, and honoring and exalting of God as the temper of one's whole waking life. — J.I. Packer

Nothing can alter the character of God. In the course of a human life, tastes and outlook and temper may change radically: a kind, equable man may turn bitter and crotchety: a man of good-will may grow cynical and callous. But nothing of this sort happens to the Creator. He never becomes less truthful, or merciful, or just, or good, than He used to be. — J.I. Packer

William Wilberforce ... w as a great man who impacted the Western world as few others have done. Blessed with brains, charm, influence and initiative, much wealth ... he put evangelism on Britain's map as a power for social change, first by overthrowing the slave trade almost single-handed and then by generating a stream of societies for doing good and reducing evil in public life ... To forget such men is foolish. — J.I. Packer

The choice of life is not between fame and fortune, nor wealth and poverty, but between good and evil. — Boyd K. Packer

It has to be an awfully good meeting to beat having no meeting at all. — Boyd K. Packer

I'm reading a bunch of fiction by Afghan and Iraq War veterans for a New Yorker piece. There hasn't been that much, but it's starting to come out, and some of the fiction is really good. — George Packer

If [we] have a good, miserable day once in a while, or several in a row, stand steady and face them. Things will straighten out. There is great purpose in our struggle in life. — Boyd K. Packer

My philosophy is making a movie is difficult enough and I just feel as if you should have a really good time when you do make films whether it's a drama or a comedy. — Will Packer

I'm a pretty organised packer, laying out everything beforehand, as I don't like to take extra stuff. I've got a good eye for judging how much I can stuff into one suitcase. I've often not brought the right items, but I'd never avoided a chance to shop, unlike most men. — Kyle MacLachlan

I will be your God," is an unconditional undertaking on God's part to be "for us" (Rom. 8:31), "on our side" (Ps. 124:1-5), using all his resources for the furthering of the ultimate good of those ("us") to whom he thus pledges himself. — J.I. Packer

The truth is that, though we were justified by faith alone, the faith that justifies is never alone (it always produces fruit, 'good works,' ... a transformed life). — J.I. Packer

Taste and see that the LORD is good," says the psalmist (Ps 34:8). To "taste" is, as we say, to "try" a mouthful of something, with a view to appreciating its flavor. A dish may look good, and be well recommended by the cook, but we do not know its real quality till we have tasted it. — J.I. Packer

If I were the devil I should broadcast doubts about the truths and relevance and good sense and straightforwardness of the Bible ... At all costs I should want to keep them from using their minds in a disciplined way to get the measure of its message. — J.I. Packer

You always hold the key of repentance to unlock the prison door. If they throw the word diversity at you, grab hold of it and say, "I am already diverse, and I intend to stay diverse." If the word is tolerance, grab that one, too, saying, "I expect you to be tolerant of my lifestyle-obedience, integrity, abstinence, repentance." If the word is choice, tell them you choose good, old-fashioned morality. — Boyd K. Packer

You thank God [for your salvation] because you do not attribute your repenting and believing to your own wisdom, or prudence, or sound judgment, or good sense. — J.I. Packer

Some of the happiest times I ever saw my dad was times when I was with him in the casinos, and he had a good night. — James Packer

God has not abandoned us any more than he abandoned Job. He never abandons anyone on whom he has set his love; nor does Christ, the good shepherd, ever lose track of his sheep. — J.I. Packer

God is good to all in some ways and to some in all ways. — J.I. Packer

God loves people because he has chosen to love them - as Charles Wesley put it, "he hath loved us, he hath loved us, because he would love" (an echo of Deut 7:7-8) - and no reason for his love can be given except his own sovereign good pleasure. — J.I. Packer

I hope to be judged as good a man as my father. Before I hear those words "well done" from my Heavenly Father, I hope to first hear them from my mortal father. — Boyd K. Packer

Be wary of feeling as through there is not enough room at the table. Oftentimes a female Chinese-American might feel as through she is in competition with another Chinese-American woman writer of the same generation. A writer friend of mine calls it the "There Can Only Be One ... " syndrome. This isn't "Survivor." The more good writers, of all walks of life and all ethnicities and persuasions, the better. — ZZ Packer

If you were born in 1950 and were in the top ten percent, everything got better for twenty years automatically. Then, after the late sixties, you went to a good grad school, and you got a good job on Wall Street in the late seventies, and then you hit the boom. Your story has been one of incredible, unrelenting progress for sixty years. Most people who are sixty years old in the U.S. - not their story at all." The establishment had been coasting for a long time and was out of answers. Its failure pointed to new directions, maybe Marxist, maybe libertarian, along a volatile trajectory that it could no longer control. — George Packer

The Final Judgment is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil acts - what we have done. It is an acknowledgment of the final effect of our acts and thoughts - what we have become. It is not enough for anyone just to go through the motions. The commandments, ordinances, and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become. — Layne Packer

I do not think it pleases the Lord when we worry because we think we never do enough or that what we do is never good enough. — Boyd K. Packer

Christ had the good of souls in his eye ... When you preach, let this be your design, to seek to recover lost sheep ... to get some converted, and brought in to your Master. — J.I. Packer

Some worry endlessly over missions that were missed, or marriages that did not turn out, or babies that did not arrive, or children that seem lost, or dreams unfulfilled, or because age limits what they can do. I do not think it pleases the Lord when we worry because we think we never do enough or that what we do is never good enough ... Some needlessly carry a heavy burden of guilt which could be removed through confession and repentance. — Boyd K. Packer

Nor is it the spirit of those Christians - alas, they are many - whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the sub-middle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.
The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor - spending and being spent - to enrich their fellowmen, giving time, trouble, care and concern to do good to others - and not just their own friends - in whatever way there seems need. — J.I. Packer

Every time we mention God we become theologians, and the only question is whether we are going to be good ones or bad ones. — J.I. Packer

When you climb my favorite Welsh mountain, the highest outside Snowdonia, by my favorite route, there are two places where you are sure you are seeing the top ahead of you; but when you get to the point you saw, you find it was only a fold in the terrain, and the real summit is still a distance away. That is a good illustration of how Christian ministry feels in all its forms. — J.I. Packer