Jerry Bridges
Jerry Bridges
Jerry Bridgeswas an evangelical Christian author, speaker and staff member of The Navigators. Born in Tyler, Texas, United States, he was the author of more than a dozen books, including The Pursuit of Holiness, which has sold more than one million copies. His devotional Holiness Day By Day garnered the 2009 ECPA Christian Book Award for the inspiration and gift category, and The Discipline of Grace received a similar award in 1995 for the Christian living category...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth4 December 1929
CountryUnited States of America
God is never at a loss because He cannot find someone to cooperate with Him in carrying out His plan. He so moves in the hearts of people - either Christians or non Christians, it makes no difference - that they willingly, of their own free will carry out His plans.
In order to trust God, we must always view our adverse circumstances through the eyes of faith, not of sense. And just as the faith of salvation comes through hearing the message of the gospel (Romans 10:17), so the faith to trust God in adversity comes through the Word of God alone. It is only in the Scriptures that we find an adequate view of God's relationship to and involvement in our painful circumstances. It is only from the Scriptures, applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that we receive the grace to trust God in adversity.
God never wastes pain. He always uses it to accomplish his purpose. And his purpose is for his glory and our good. Therefore we can trust him when our hearts are aching or our bodies are racked with pain
Worship from the heart in times of adversity implies an attitude of humble acceptance on our part of God's right to do as He pleases in our lives.
Which of us, then, does not offend frequently with our tongue? The real problem, however, is not our tongues but our hearts.
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.
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.
Uncontrolled temper is soon dissipated on others. Resentment, bitterness, and self-pity build up inside our hearts and eat away at our spiritual lives like a slowly spreading cancer.
We're more concerned about our own "victory" over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve God's heart.
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.
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.
In the deceitfulness of our hearts, we sometimes play with temptation by entertaining the thought that we can always confess and later ask forgiveness. Such thinking is exceedingly dangerous. God’s judgement is without partiality. He never overlooks our sin. He never decides not to bother, since the sin is only a small one. No, God hates sin intensely whenever and wherever He finds it.
Only when we're thoroughly convinced that the Christian life is entirely of grace are we able to serve God out of a grateful and loving heart.
Bitterness arises in our hearts when we do not trust in the sovereign rule of God in our lives