Bishop Ryle always has poignant things to say.  This quote arrested my attention the other day:

“If you love Me, keep My commandments….You are My friends if you do whatever I command you” (John 14:15, 15:14).  Plainer words than these it would be difficult to find, and woe to those who neglect them!  Surely that man must be in an unhealthy state of soul who can think of all that Jesus suffered, and yet cling to those sins for which that suffering was undergone.  It was sin that wove the crown of thorns; it was sin that pierced our Lord’s hands, and feet, and side; it was sin that brought Him to Gethsemane and Calvary, to the cross, and to the grave.  Cold must our hearts be if we do not hate sin and labor to get rid of it, though we may have to cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye in doing it.

Sin certainly is appealing, but can we honestly sin when we are thinking of what Christ did to redeem us from that sin?  Yes it will hurt us to rid our lives of hardened sins that we like so much, but for the love of the Savior, is that too much to ask of us?  Can we really continue in habitual sin, knowing how great a cost Christ paid to win us?  God help us not to do so!

Quotation taken from J.C. Ryle’s amazing book Holiness {here}.

Chapter 12 “The Discipline of Watching”

We know that we are sinners.  We want to live godly lives.  But sin is so powerful.  We must constantly be on guard against sin, watching for it to rear its ugly head, so that through the power of the Spirit and the Scriptures we can defeat that temptation.

We must know our enemy.  Our enemy is us, though!  Our sin nature is our greatest enemy and it is in us!!  This means that we must know ourselves.  We must study our weaknesses.

If you know you are weak in a particular sin in particular circumstances, then make a commitment never to allow yourself to be in that situation so that you can be tempted.  Don’t let yourself be alone with the computer if you struggle with pornography.  Don’t buy lots of sweets if you struggle with gluttony.  Set up boundaries for yourself so that you can avoid temptation.

“Having identified our own areas of vulnerability, we should make definite commitments regarding them, pray about them, and memorize specific verses of Scripture that will strengthen us against those temptations.”

“We must be alert for those particular sins as they seek to assert themselves.”

Material including all quotations taken from:
The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2006). {here}

This is part of a series of posts {here}.

Chapter 11 “The Discipline of Choices” Pt.4

Struggle

“Mortification involves a struggle between what we know to be right (our convictions) and what we desire to do.”

“Mortification is going to involve struggle.”  “It is always emotionally painful to say no to those desires, especially when they represent recurring sin patterns, because those desires run deep and strong.  They cry out for fulfillment.”

Difficulty & Failure

“We must also realize that the discipline of mortification will be attended by a certain amount of failure.  In fact, as we initially begin to mortify a particular sin, we will often fail more than we succeed.  This is where we need to realize that we stand before God on the basis of His grace rather than on our performance.”

“We must, however, keep going back to His grace.  Only the grace of God revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ will give us the courage to get up again and keep on going even after we have failed for the umpteenth time.”

Material including all quotations taken from:
The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2006). {here}

This is part of a series of posts {here}.

Chapter 11 “The Discipline of Choices” Pt.3

Dawson Trotman (founder of The Navigators): “You are going to be what you are now becoming.”

“Mortification (putting to death of sin) is our responsibility.  This is something we must do.  It is not something we turn over to God.”

“To mortify a sin means to subdue it, to deprive it of its power, to break the habit pattern we have developed of continually giving in to the temptation of that particular sin.  The goal of mortification is to weaken the habits of sin so that we do make the right choices.”

“Without a purpose to obey all of God’s Word, isolated attempts to mortify a particular sin are of no avail.  An attitude of universal obedience in every area of life is essential.”

“See sin for what is really is—a rebellion against God, a breaking of His law, a despising of His authority, a grieving of His heart.  This is where mortification actually begins, with a right attitude toward sin.”

“All sin is desired, or perhaps the perceived benefits of the sin are desired, before it is acted upon.”

“Our desires are never satisfied.”

Material including all quotations taken from:
The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2006). {here}

This is part of a series of posts {here}.

A quote from a 2003 study by the Barna Research Group on the strongest and weakest character traits of Christian leaders:

Character is not like competencies, for which it is acceptable to ignore your weaknesses and run with your strengths.  Weakness of character will eventually undermine your strengths, no matter how strong they are.  Identifying character vulnerabilities is helpful because it provides an early warning signal of pending disasters.

These are some important words that would be worthwhile to heed.  A Christian leader can improve his leadership skills, his preaching skills, his teaching skills, his discipleship skills, his reasoning abilities, his knowledge of subjects, his administrative abilities, etc., but a deficient character will ruin him no matter how good he is at everything else.  He has to be godly above all else.  A lack of godliness will ultimately sabotage everything else that he is or does.  We must commit to being godly, and we must exercise ourselves in godliness.  As the quote above points out, we must identify those areas of our character that are lacking so that we may consciously try to improve them.  Leaders, please, whatever you do, be godly!

Chapter 11 “The Discipline of Choices” Pt. 2

“It is just as true, however, that the discipline and dependence, the commitment and convictions are absolutely necessary to our making the right choices.  We do not make our choices in a vacuum.  They are determined by the convictions we have developed and the conscious or unconscious commitments we have made.  And it is certainly true that, given the remaining presence of indwelling sin, we can make the right choices only through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit.”

“What happens when we make wrong choices, when we choose to sin instead of obey God’s Word?  We train ourselves in the wrong direction.  We reinforce the sinful habits we have already developed and allow them to gain greater strength in our souls.”

“We will agree with the teaching of Scripture about some particular sin, and even make a commitment of sorts to put it out of our lives.  But then the temptation to indulge that sin comes once again, and we are unwilling to say no.  We are unwilling to make those tough choices.  We would like to be rid of that sin, and even pray to God to take it away, but are we willing to say ‘no’ to it?”

“It is only through making the right choice to obey God’s Word that we will break the habits of sin and develop habits of holiness.  This is where we desperately need the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to make the right choices.  So cry out to God every day for His help for that day, and then cry out again each time you are confronted with the choice to sin or to obey.”

Material including all quotations taken from:
The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2006). {here}

This is part of a series of posts {here}.

Chapter 11 “The Discipline of Choices” Pt. 1

“Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.” (Rom. 6.19)

“The Bible was not given just to increase your knowledge but to guide your conduct.”

Choices

The Battle for Holiness is the Battle of Choices.  Every time we are tempted we have a choice to make—will we indulge our sin and disobey God or will we value God over that sin and choose to obey God?  This is the foundation of holiness—the thousands of individual choices we make each and every day.

This battle takes place with one choice at a time.  We are not asked to live the entire day in a holy way.  We are asked only to live holy in this one choice that is present right now.  The other choices that will come later in the day will worry about themselves.  All you have to do is decide in this present moment which choice you will make.

“Sin tends to cloud our reason, dull our consciences, stimulate our sinful desires, and weaken our wills.  Because of this, each sin we commit reinforces the habit of sinning and makes it easier to give in to that temptation the next time we encounter it.”

“Holiness of character is developed one choice at a time as we choose to act righteously in each and every situation and circumstance encounter during the day.”

“We do not become more holy either by discipline or dependence.  Neither do we become more holy by committing ourselves to God or developing Bible-based convictions.  We become more holy by obedience to the Word of God, by choosing to obey His will as revealed in the Scriptures in all the various circumstances of our daily lives.”

Material including all quotations taken from:
The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2006). {here}

This is part of a series of posts {here}.

Chapter 10 “The Discipline of Convictions”

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the perfect, acceptable will of God” (Rom. 12.1-2)

We are constantly be influenced by something.  We are constantly being molded and shaped.  We are either being shaped either by God or by the world.  There is no middle ground.  The thing that determines where we are in Christlikeness is “our attitude toward the Word of God and the time we spend thinking about it.”

We should not be conformed to the world’s mold any longer.  We must escape its influence.  But the flipside to this is that we must be transformed into God’s image.  We must be doing both—not being conformed and being transformed.  “The Word of God is the chief instrument that the Holy Spirit uses to transform us.”

“In thinking about Scripture and its application to our lives, we must be sure that we are thinking God’s truth and not our own opinions.”  God does have specific commands about certain areas of our lives, and we must obey those.  Those are not optional just because we don’t like them.  We must also be careful not to suppose that our convictions or thoughts about certain “gray areas” are the same as God’s commands.  We cannot give our convictions the same authority as the Word of God.

“However knowledgeable about Scripture we may be, we need to approach it every day as little children, asking the Holy Spirit to teach us.”

We also must memorize God’s Word so that we have it as a ready weapon to fight temptation or to use in evangelism.  By meditating on it, we are transformed into God’s image.  But we must be sure to also apply it to our lives.  Head knowledge is not enough.  We must put the Scripture into our heart and practice.

“Our tendency seems to be to equate knowledge of the truth, and even agreement to it, with obedience to it.”  How wrong!  We must obey it in our daily lives, not just know it and agree with it!

Material including all quotations taken from:
The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2006). {here}

This is part of a series of posts {here}.

Chapter 9 “The Discipline of Commitment”

“I have taken an oath and confirmed it, that I will follow your righteous laws” (Ps. 119.106)

Along with our prayer life in dependence on the Holy Spirit’s help in living the life of godliness, we must take conscious steps to build up a self-disciplined life of godliness.  This begins with a discipline of making specific commitments to obey God.  For example, I commit not to look at pornography, or I commit not to ever be alone with a woman in my house, or I commit never to cheat on my taxes, or I commit never to lie to my wife.  Begin by making specific commitments not to engage in sins you know are offensive to God.

Commit yourself to God.  Determine to obey His commands.  Do not make any exceptions whatsoever.  Make sure your motives are pure.  Make very specific commitments.  What Christ has done for us is our motivation.

“It is the intention to please God in all our actions that is the key to commitment to a life of holiness.  If we do not make such a commitment to obedience without exception, we will constantly find ourselves making exceptions.  We will have a ‘just one more time’ syndrome in our lives.  But the truth is, the ‘one more time’ manner of thinking undermines our commitment.  Every time we give in to temptation, even though it may seem small and insignificant to us, we make it easier to give in the next time.  Sin has a tendency to exert an ever-increasing power on us if it is not resisted on every occasion.”

Material including all quotations taken from:
The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2006). {here}

This is part of a series of posts {here}.

Chapter 8 “Dependent Discipline”

The Christian life may be likened to an airplane.  The plane has two wings.  It cannot fly or do anything without both of those wings.  If it loses one, then it crashes.  It must have both.  So the Christian life is made up of two things: dependence [on the Holy Spirit’s help] and discipline.  We must have both in order to be holy.  If we lack either, we crash and burn.  Both are essential to living a Christlike life.

Do we Work or Pray?  Both!  We don’t just sit back and let God do all the work.  We also have to be active in our holiness.  Likewise, though, if we just try to live by self-discipline alone, we will fail every time.  We must be trusting God and working ourselves.  A farmer can plow, plant, fertilize, irrigate, cultivate, and harvest his field, but he cannot make it grow or control the weather.  The believer must do his part, and God must do His part.  Both are required.  Nehemiah is a good example.  He both prayed and worked.

We must be disciplined in prayer.  That is how we depend on God.  That is how we communicate with God and tell Him that we need help.

It is sin to be self-sufficient.  To think that we can live out the Christian life on our own without God is sin against Him.  It is also impossible to succeed by this way.  Self-sufficient living will only bring pain, difficulty, failure, grief, and disaster.

Material including all quotations taken from:
The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2006). {here}

This is part of a series of posts {here}.