Author: Kevin

I am a follower of Jesus, husband, pastor, author, and caffeine addict. Please follow me on Facebook or Twitter. You may also want to consider subscribing to the RSS feed.

J.I. Packer on the Struggle with Sin

I ran across a devotional book at Dad’s house during our Christmas vacation. It is entitled Knowing and Doing the Will of God by J.I. Packer. I’m not sure how it ended up in his basement, but I grabbed it and decided to make it my 2025 devotional. This devotional is a compilation from other books put into a daily format (a paragraph or two for each date). I’ve enjoyed reading it and have been posting lines from it to my social media accounts like my Facebook page and my X account.

I’ve been thinking about one page/entry for a few days: Packer’s thoughts on Matthew 18:8 and the struggle with habitual or “besetting” sins (March 24, page 95). I’ll quote the whole entry:

While surrendering sins into which you drift casually is not so hard, mortifying what the Puritans called “besetting” sins–dispositional sins to which your temperament inclines you, and habitual sins that have become addictive and defiant–is regularly a long-draw-out, bruising struggle. No one who is a spiritual realist will ever pretend otherwise. It is a matter of negating, wishing dead, and laboring to thwart the inclinations, cravings, and habits that have been in you for a long time. Pain and grief, moans and groans, will certainly be involved, for your sin does not want to die, nor will it enjoy the killing process. Jesus told us, very vividly, that mortifying a sing could well feel like plucking out an eye or cutting off a hand or foot, in other words, self-mutilation. You will feel you are saying good-bye to something that is so much a part of you that without it you cannot live.

-J.I. Packer

The original source of this quote is from his book entitled Rediscovering Holiness.

I pray these thoughts will encourage you if you are struggling to let go of besetting sins.

You are a mist (James 4:14)

The Book of James includes this admonition:


13Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

-James 4:13-15

James is not arguing against planning or even making profits. The Bible, in fact speaks of both of these activities in positive terms, so long as they are done honestly (Proverbs 6:6-8 comes to mind).

Instead, James is warning about a specific danger: planning as though God is not part of the equation.

James even gives us some practical reasons to avoid a presumptuous attitude about life in verse 14.

First, we see that life is unpredictable (“you do not know what tomorrow will bring”). We can and should do our best to plan wisely–God is not honored by a life that is lived irresponsibly or haphazardly.

But consider this: Some of the most significant events in your life will be things you never planned. 

The year 2012 was a prime example of this for me. I had moved from Manila to Angeles City with the sole intention of helping my friend plant a church. But God had even more in store for me. I ended up meeting my wife the day after I moved. We were married within weeks. One of the greatest earthly blessings a man can experience is that of finding a godly wife. This blessing came to me at a time and in a way I never would have expected.

But 2012 would end in heartbreak. I vividly remember receiving a text from the United States informing me that my Mom would soon step into eternity. She was a Christian, so she was prepared. But I was devastated--her death meant she would never meet my wife in person. These verses in Job took on a new meaning:

20Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

-Job 1:20-21

You may have been through a season in life that is even more extreme than what I’ve shared. But one way or another, we all learn that life surprises us with both joy and pain. As I’ve argued before, God has a way of wrecking our plans.

We are also warned that life is fleeting. James describes it as a “mist” (vs. 14).

Here’s the irony: I don’t think one appreciates how quickly life goes by until it’s about halfway over. It takes at least a few decades to even begin to grasp it. It seems like we reach the end before we even begin to understand God’s goodness and wisdom.

Here’s a quote that has always resonated with me:


“Life is a short and fevered rehearsal for a concert we cannot stay to give. Just when we appear to have attained some proficiency we are forced to lay our instruments down.”

-AW Tozer

The “mist” analogy of verse 14 also warns us that life is temporary.

Put another way, life is a temporary assignment heading towards an eternal destination.

Every man, woman, boy and girl has an immortal soul. This temporal earthly life, biblically speaking, is preparation for eternity. The ending of biological life is only the beginning of something even more significant. Those who have trusted Christ will enjoy His presence for eternity. Those who have rejected Him will spend eternity regretting it.

We live in a reality of eternal consequence. It’s only fitting that we live with an eternal perspective.

Life is unpredictable. Life is fleeting. Life is temporary.

How should we live in light of these realities? The answer is in verse 15: “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

The wisest path in life is to live in submission to the will of God. We submit to the One who knows and holds the future. We submit to the One who will maximize these few, fleeting years for His eternal purposes.

The first step in living this kind of life is to believe the gospel and trust Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Once you’ve trusted Christ, obey Him! This is the essence of submission–obedience. I can’t think of a single time that I have regretted obeying God and doing His will. Disobedience, on the other hand, has only left me with regrets–regrets for wasted time that was never mine to begin with.

Choose wisely. Live wisely.

Father, I thank you for your promise to give wisdom to those who genuinely seek it (James 1:5). I know that Your plan for me is one that will bring glory to You and joy to me. I pray that I will live wisely and obediently with an eternal perspective.