Wednesday, 29 October 2008

The pattern for Christian living

[...] there's always something that has to be left behind if you're going to embrace God's vocation for you. One rather portentous but nonetheless very profound way of expressing this is to say the Christian life according to the New Testament is to be lived according to the baptismal pattern, which means that experiences of renunciation even to death (or what feels like death) constantly precede experiences of resurrection in which you're made rich again. But the resurrection doesn't come until after the death. And it's round the circle of that pattern for each of us over and over again: death followed by resurrection is the recurring sequence. This is part of the Lord's discipline for our personal living, just as it's part of the pattern of the Lord's work in the church and in the world.
- p.170, Never Beyond Hope by J. I. Packer and Carolyn Nystrom


I just finished reading this book, Never Beyond Hope. I didn't do the study guides, though. It's probably worth going through this book again sometime in the future, perhaps with some other people. Then, I may do the study guide at the end of each chapter.

You can get this book at Koorong or from Amazon.

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