Who Said It
James I. Packer

Chased from a British school playground into the street, seven-year-old Jim was hit by a passing van. The near-fatal skull fracture permanently dented his forehead and pushed him from sports to reading. An Oxford-educated theologian, he's lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, since 1979, when he joined the faculty at Regent College.

At age 13 Packer heard Jelly Roll Morton's "Steamboat Stomp" on the radio and was captivated. Thus began his lifelong love for Dixieland jazz.

What He Said
Love Me, Love My __

He was an odd little man, lean, intense, and jerky, with a face that seemed to light up as he spoke. I was there out of loyalty to the college chapel, not expecting to be impressed. But he captured my attention telling us how in his teens he had experienced a personal conversion to Jesus, like that which I had just undergone myself.

"And then," he said, "I got excited about the Church. You could say I fell in love with it." He then hammered home the point that all who love Jesus Christ the Lord ought to care deeply about the Church because the Church is the object of Jesus' own love. Church-centeredness is thus one way in which Christ-centeredness ought to find expression.

Was he right? Yes, he was: no question about that.

Something is wrong with professed Christians who don't identify with the Church, and love it, and invest themselves in it, and carry its needs on their hearts.

Adapted from A Passion for Faithfulness (Crossway, 2001) by permission.

Prayer for the Week

Father, Your Son gave His life for the church. Teach me, as His follower, to care deeply about it too.

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