Jerry Bridges quotes
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Our worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace.
-- Jerry Bridges -
The grace that brought salvation to you is the same grace that teaches or disciplines you. But you must respond on the basis of grace, not law.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Grace stands in direct opposition to any supposed worthiness on our part. To say it another way: Grace and works are mutually exclusive. As Paul said in Romans 11:6, "And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace." Our relationship with God is based on either works or grace. There is never a works-plus-grace relationship with Him.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Our first problem is that our attitude towards sin is more self-centred than God-centred. We are more concerned about our own "Victory" over sin than we are about the fact that our sin grieve the heart of God. We cannot tolerate failure in our struggle with sin chiefly because we are success oriented, not because we know it is offensive to God.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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So often we try to develop Christian character and conduct without taking the time to develop God-centered devotion. We try to please God without taking the time to walk with Him and develop a relationship with Him. This is impossible to do.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Three means by which God assures us that we do have eternal life: 1. The promises of His Word, 2. The witness of the Spirit in our hearts, 3. The transforming work of the Spirit in our lives.
-- Jerry Bridges -
The person who is living by grace sees this vast contrast between his own sins against God and the offenses of others against him. He forgives others because he himself has been so graciously forgiven. He realizes that, by receiving God’s forgiveness through Christ, he has forfeited the right to be offended when others hurt him.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Don't believe everything you think. You cannot be trusted to tell yourself the truth. Stay in The Word.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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We all want Grace, but we cannot enjoy Grace when there is an attitude of comparing.
-- Jerry Bridges -
God intends that everyone who has embraced the gospel become a part of the great enterprise of spreading the gospel.
-- Jerry Bridges -
That which should distinguish the suffering of believers from unbelievers is the confidence that our suffering is under the control of an all-powerful and all-loving God. Our suffering has meaning and purpose in God's eternal plan, and He brings or allows to come into our lives only that which is for His glory and our good.
-- Jerry Bridges -
In His infinite wisdom, God allows trials in order to develop perseverance in us and to cause us to fix our hopes on the glory that is yet to be revealed... Our faith and perseverance can grow only under the pain of trial.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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God's unfailing love for us is an objective fact affirmed over and over in the Scriptures. It is true whether we believe it or not. Our doubts do not destroy God's love, nor does our faith create it. It originates in the very nature of God, who is love, and it flows to us through our union with His beloved Son.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Grace is never cheap. It is absolutely free to us, but infinitely expensive to God... Anyone who is prone to use grace as a license for irresponsible, sinful behavior, surely does not appreciate the infinite price God paid to give us His grace.
-- Jerry Bridges -
As we become soft and lazy in our bodies, we tend to become soft and lazy spiritually.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Love provides the motive for obeying the commands of the law, but the law provides specific direction for exercising love.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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Sin is wrong, not because of what it does to me, or my spouse, or child, or neighbor, but because it is an act of rebellion against the infinitely holy and majestic God.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Both gentleness and meekness are born of power, not weakness. There is a pseudo-gentlene ss that is effeminate, and there is a pseudo-meekness that is cowardly. But a Christian is to be gentle and meek because those are Godlike virtues... We should never be afraid, therefore, that the gentleness of the Spirit means weakness of character. It takes strength, God's strength, to be truly gentle.
-- Jerry Bridges -
We're more concerned about our own "victory" over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve God's heart.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Nothing can be more consoling to the man of God, than the conviction that the Lord who made the world governs the world; and that every event, great and small, prosperous and adverse, is under the absolute disposal of Him who doth all things well, and who regulates all things for the good of his people.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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God makes provision for our holiness, but He gives us the responsibility of using those provisions.
-- Jerry Bridges -
A willingness to share our possessions with one another is a very important aspect of true biblical community.
-- Jerry Bridges -
God's Word must be so strongly fixed in our minds that it becomes the dominant influence in our thoughts, our attitudes, and our actions. One of the most effective ways of influencing our minds is through memorizing Scripture. David said, "I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You" (Psm. 119:11).
-- Jerry Bridges -
To be justified means more than to be declared "not guilty." It actually means to be declared righteous before God. It means God has imputed or charged the guilt of our sin to His Son, Jesus Christ, and has imputed or credited Christ's righteousness to us.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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It is not the fact that we are united in common goals or purposes that makes us a community. Rather, it is the fact that we share a common life in Christ.
-- Jerry Bridges -
No detail of your life is too insignificant for your heavenly Father's attention.
-- Jerry Bridges -
God's guidance is almost always step-by-step; He does not show us our life's plan all at once. Sometimes our anxiousness to know the will of God comes from a desire to peer over God's shoulder to see what His plan is. What we need to do is learn to trust Him to guide us.
-- Jerry Bridges -
In both its precepts and penalty, the law of God in its most exacting requirements was fulfilled by Jesus. And He did this in our place as our representative and our substitute.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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Contentment is one of the most distinguishing traits of the godly person, because a godly person has his heart focused on God rather than on possessions or position or power.
-- Jerry Bridges -
We must not allow our emotions to hold sway over our minds. Rather, we must seek to let the truth of God rule our minds. Our emotions must become subservient to the truth.
-- Jerry Bridges -
How then can we deal with our tendency toward worldliness? It is not by determining that we will not be worldly, but by committing ourselves to becoming more godly.
-- Jerry Bridges -
The level of our obedience is most often determined by the behavior standard of other Christians around us.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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God never allows pain without a purpose in the lives of His children. He never allows Satan, nor circumstances, nor any ill-intending person to afflict us unless He uses that affliction for our good. God never wastes pain. He always causes it to work together for our ultimate good, the good of conforming us more to the likeness of His Son (see Romans 8:28-29).
-- Jerry Bridges -
Trust is not a passive state of mind. It is a vigorous act of the soul by which we choose to lay hold on the promises of God and cling to them despite the adversity that at times seeks to overwhelms us.
-- Jerry Bridges -
God’s plan and His ways of working out His plan are frequently beyond our ability to fathom and understand. We must learn to trust when we don’t understand.
-- Jerry Bridges -
If we want proof of God's love for us, then we must look first at the Cross where God offered up His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. Calvary is the one objective, absolute, irrefutable proof of God's love for us.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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Every day is important for us because it is a day ordained by God. If we are bored with life there is something wrong with our concept of God and His involvement in our daily lives. Even the most dull and tedious days of our lives are ordained by God and ought to be used by us to glorify Him.
-- Jerry Bridges -
To live by grace is to live solely by the merit of Jesus Christ. To live by grace is to base my entire relationship with God, including my acceptance and standing with Him, on my union with Christ.
-- Jerry Bridges -
We obey God's Law, not to be loved but because we are loved in Christ.
-- Jerry Bridges -
God's sovereignty does not negate our responsibility to pray, but rather makes it possible for us to pray with confidence.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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This is the essence of God's sovereignty; His absolute independence to do as He pleases and His absolute control over the actions of all His creatures. No creature, person, or empire can either thwart His will or act outside the bounds of His will.
-- Jerry Bridges -
We must pray constantly for His enabling grace to say no to temptation, of choosing to take all practical steps to avoid known areas of temptation and flee from those that surprise us.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Biblical love is not emotions or feelings, but attitudes and actions that seek the best interests of the other person, regardless of how we feel toward him.
-- Jerry Bridges -
But we need to pray daily for humility and honesty to see these sinful attitudes for that they really are, and then for grace and discipline to root them out of our minds and replace them with thoughts pleasing to God.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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Complaining about the weather seems to be a favorite American pastime. Sadly, we Christians often get caught up in this ungodly habit in our society. But when we complain about the weather, we are actually complaining against God who sent us our weather. We are, in fact, sinning against God.
-- Jerry Bridges -
God is at work in all the circumstances of your life to bring out the good for you, even if you had never heard of Romans 8:28. His work is not dependent upon your faith. But the comfort and joy that statement is intended to give you is dependent upon your believing it, upon your trusting in Him who is at work, even though you cannot see the outcome of that work.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Holiness is nothing less than conformity to the character of God
-- Jerry Bridges -
Worship is the specific act of ascribing to God the glory, majesty, honor, and worthiness which are His.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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Faith enables us to obey when obedience is costly or seems unreasonable to the natural mind.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Obeying the revealed will of God and trusting Him for the results.
-- Jerry Bridges -
We insist that God must surely lead everyone as we believe He has led us. We refuse to allow God the freedom to deal with each of us as individuals. When we think like that, we are legalistic.
-- Jerry Bridges -
The gospel is not only the most important message in all of history; it is the only essential message in all of history.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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We don't have to start all over again and try to keep the slate clean. There is no more slate.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Because God is sovereign, He is able to answer. Because He is faithful to His promises, He will answer.
-- Jerry Bridges -
The cure for the sin of envy and jealousy is to find our contentment in God
-- Jerry Bridges -
Bitterness arises in our hearts when we do not trust in the sovereign rule of God in our lives
-- Jerry Bridges -
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God is worthy of my loving obedience because of who He is, not because of what he does.
-- Jerry Bridges -
We ought to be as earnest and frequent in our prayers of thanksgiving when the cupboard is full as we would be in our prayers of supplication if the cupboards were bare.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Thankfulness to God is a recognition that God in His goodness and faithfulness has provided for us and cared for us, both physically and spiritually. It is a recognition that we are totally dependent upon Him; that all that we are and have comes from God.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Prayer is the most tangible expression of trust in God.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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The great antidote to anxiety is to come to God in prayer. We are to pray about everything. Nothing is too big for Him to handle, and nothing is too small to escape His attention.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Gentleness is an active trait, describing the manner in which we should treat others. Meekness is a passive trait, describing the proper Christian response when others mistreat us.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Grace... expresses two complementary thoughts: God's unmerited favor to us through Christ, and God's divine assistance to us through the Holy Spirit.
-- Jerry Bridges -
God's grace is not given to make us feel better, but to glorify Him... Good feelings may come, or they may not, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether or not we honor God by the way we respond to our circumstances.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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Here is a spiritual principle: We cannot exercise love unless we are experiencing grace. You cannot truly love others unless you are convinced that God's love for you is unconditional, based solely on the merit of Christ, not on your performance. Our love, either to God or to others, can only be a response to His love for us.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Many Christians have what we might call a 'cultural holiness.' They adapt to the character and behavior pattern of Christians around them...But God has not called us to be like those around us. He has called us to be like Himself. Holiness is nothing less than conformity to the character of God.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Modern Christians, especially those in the Western world, have generally been found wanting in the area of holiness of body. Gluttony and laziness, for example, were regarded by earlier Christians as sin. Today we may look on these as weaknesses of the will but certainly not sin. We even joke about our overeating and other indulgences instead of crying out to God in confession and repentance.
-- Jerry Bridges -
This is the secret of being content: To learn and accept that we live daily by God's unmerited favor given through Christ, and that we can respond to any and every situation by His divine enablement through the Holy Spirit.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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Legalism insists on conformity to manmade religious rules and requirements, which are often unspoken but are nevertheless very real... There are far too many instances within Christendom where our traditions and rules are, in practice, more important than God's commands.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace.Pharisee-type believers unconsciously think they have earned God's blessing through their behavior. Guilt-laden believers are quite sure they have forfeited God's blessing through their lack of discipline or their disobedience. Both have forgotten the meaning of grace because they have moved away from the gospel and have slipped into a performance relationship with God.
-- Jerry Bridges -
When we commit ourselves to the pursuit of holiness, we need to ensure that our commitment is actually to God, not simply to a holy lifestyle or a set of moral values ... offer yourselves to God, and in doing that commit yourselves to the pursuit of holiness in order to please Him.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Preach the gospel to yourself every day.
-- Jerry Bridges -
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If there is not at least a yearning in our hearts to live a holy life pleasing to God, we need to seriously question whether our faith in Christ is genuine.
-- Jerry Bridges -
We could not take one step in the pursuit of holiness if God in His grace had not first delivered us from the dominion of sin and brought us into union with His risen Son. Salvation is by grace and sanctification is by grace.
-- Jerry Bridges -
Grace is the love of God shown to the unlovely. It is God reaching downward to people who are in rebellion against him.
-- Jerry Bridges
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