Calvinism is the consistent endeavor to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of His will.
J. I. PackerThere is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me.
J. I. PackerWherever Christianity has produced what historians call a 'popular piety' claiming to be part of the national heritage, anti-Christian reaction among the intelligentsia has followed.
J. I. PackerWe think of God as too much like what we are. Learn to acknowledge the full majesty of your incomparable God and Savior.
J. I. PackerOptimism 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. PackerIt has been said that in the New Testament doctrine is grace; and ethics is gratitude; and something is wrong with any form of Christianity in which, experimentally and practically, this saying is not being verified. Those who suppose that the doctrine of God's grace tends to encourage moral laxity are simply showing that, in the most literal sense, they do not know what they are talking about. For love awakens love in return; and love, once awakened, desires to give pleasure.
J. I. Packer