I am still working through JI Packer's 'Knowing God' Here is a really good quote out of the chapter that is titled "Goodness and Severity" (talking through the character's and attributes of God) Here it is.... (f you feel like it is to long, at least read #3)


"... Three lessons....

1. Appreciate the goodness of God. Count your blessing. Learn not to take natural benefits, endowments, and pleasures for granted; learn to thank God for them all. Do not slight the Bible, or the gospel of Jesus Christ, by an attitude of casualness towards either. The Bible shows you a savior who suffered and died in order that we sinners might be reconciled to God; Calvary is the measure of the goodness of God; lay it to heart. Ask yourself the psalmist question--'What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me?' Seek grace to give his answer--' I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD....O LORD, truly I am thy servant... I will pay my vows unto the LORD now...' (Psalm 116"12ff.).

2. Appreciate the patience of God. Think how He has borne with you, and still bears with you, when so much in your life is unworthy of Him, and you have so richly deserved His rejection. Learn to marvel at His patience, and seek grace to imitate it in your dealings with other men; and try not to try His patience any more.

3. Appreciate the discipline of God. He is both your upholder and, in the last analysis, your environment; all things come of Him, and you have tasted His goodness every day of your life. Has this experience led you to repentance and faith in Christ? If not, you are trifling with God, and stand under the threat of His severity. But if, now, He, in Whitefield's phrase, puts thorns in your bed, it is only to awaken you from the sleep of spiritual death, and to make you rise up to see His mercy. Or if you are a true believer, and He still puts thorns in your bed, it is only to keep you from falling into the somnolence of complacency, and to ensure that you 'continue in goodness' by letting your sense of need bring you back constantly in self-abasement and faith to seek His face. This kindly discipline, in which God's severity touches us for a moment in the context of His goodness, is meant to keep us from having to bear the full brunt of that severity apart from context. It is a discipline of love, and must be received accordingly. 'My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord' (Hebrews 12:5) "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes' (Psalm 119:71)