“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.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“Too often, we say we are defeated by this or that sin. No, we are not defeated. We are simply disobedient. It might be good if we stop using the terms victory and defeat to describe our progress in holiness. Rather, we should use the terms obedience and disobedience. When I say I am defeated by some sin, I am unconsciously slipping out from under my responsibility. I am saying something outside of me has defeated me. But when I say I am disobedient, that places the responsibility for my sin squarely on me. We may in fact be defeated, but the reason we are defeated is because we have chosen to disobey.
We need to brace ourselves up and to realize that we are responsible for thoughts, attitudes, and actions. We need to reckon on the fact that we died to sin's reign, that it no longer has any dominion over us, that God has united us with the risen Christ in all His power and has given us the Holy Spirit to work in us. Only as we accept our responsibility and appropriate God's provisions will we make any progress in our pursuit of holiness.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“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, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“Even our tears of repentance need to be washed in the blood of the Lamb.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“As we grow in holiness, we grow in hatred of sin; and God, being infinitely holy, has an infinite hatred of sin.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“One of the most difficult defilements of the spirit to deal with is the critical spirit. A critical spirit has its root in pride. Because of the 'plank' of pride in our own eye we are not capable of dealing with the 'speck' of need in someone else. We are often like the Pharisee who, completely unconscious of his own need prayed "God, I thank you that I am not like other men" (Luke 18:11). We are quick to see - and to speak of - the faults of others, but slow to see our own needs. How sweetly we relish the opportunity to speak critically of someone else - even when we are unsure of the facts. We forge that "a man who stirs up dissension among brothers" by criticizing one to another is one of the "six thing which the Lord hates" (Proverbs 6:16-19)”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“As we become soft and lazy in our bodies, we tend to become soft and lazy spiritually.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“The Holy Spirit makes us aware of our lack of holiness to stimulate us to deeper yearning and striving for holiness. But Satan will attempt to use the Holy Spirit’s work to discourage us.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“We must be careful to let the Holy Spirit do this searching. If we try to search our own hearts, we are apt to fall into one or both of two traps. The first is the trap of morbid introspection. Introspection can easily become the tool of Satan, who is called the "accuser" (Revelation 12:10). One of his chief weapons is discouragement. He knows that if he can make us discouraged and dispirited, we will not fight the battle for holiness. The second trap is that of missing the real issues in our lives.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“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, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“The Christian living in disobedience also lives devoid of joy and hope. But when he begins to understand that Christ has delivered him from the reign of sin, when he begins to see that he is united to Him who has all power and authority and that it is possible to walk in obedience, he begins to have hope, and as he hopes in Christ, he begins to have joy. In the strength of this joy, he begins to overcome the sins that have so easily entangle him. He then finds that the joy of a holy walk is infinitely more satisfying than the fleeting pleasures of sin. But to experience this joy, we must make some choices. We must choose to forsake sin, not only because it is defeating to us but because it grieves the heart of God.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“We become so accustomed to our sins we sometimes lapse into a state of peaceful coexistence with them, but God never ceases to hate them.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“We are to come to the Word in a spirit of humility and contrition because we recognize that we are sinful, that we are often blind to our sinfulness, and that we need the enlightening power of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“God wants us to walk in obedience—not victory. Obedience is oriented toward God; victory is oriented toward self.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“W. S. Plumer said, “We never see sin aright until we see it as against God...All sin is against God in this sense: that it is His law that is broken, His authority that is despised, His government that is set at naught...Pharaoh and Balaam, Saul and Judas each said, ‘I have sinned’; but the returning prodigal said, ‘I have sinned against heaven and before thee’; and David said, ‘Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“We need to cultivate in our own hearts the same hatred of sin God has. Hatred of sin as sin, not just as something disquieting or defeating to ourselves, but as displeasing to God, lies at the root of all true holiness.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“The Holy Spirit opens the inner recesses of our hearts and enables us to see the moral cesspools hidden there.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“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, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“So we see that God has made provision for our holiness. Through Christ He has delivered us from sin's reign so that we now can resist sin. But the responsibility for resisting is ours. God does not do that for us. To confuse the potential for resisting (which God provided) with the responsibility for resisting (which is ours) is to court disaster in our pursuit of holiness.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“Holiness begins in our minds and works out to our actions. This being true, what we allow to enter our minds is critically important.
The television programs we watch, the movies we may attend, the books and magazines we read, the music we listen to, and the conversations we have all affect our minds.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“We may feel that a particular habit 'isn't too bad,'but continually giving in to that habit weakens our wills against the onslaughts of temptation from other directions.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“It is clear from our Lord's prayer that He does not intend for us to withdraw from contact with the world of non-Christians (John 17:15). Instead, He said we are to be 'the salt of the earth' and 'the light of the world' (Matthew 5:13-14).”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“But the guarding of our desires is more than fighting a rear-guard defensive action against temptations from the world, the flesh, and the devil. We must take the offensive. Paul directs us to set our hearts on things above, that is, on spiritual values (Colossians 3:1).”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“Years ago a friend gave me what he called his 'Formula: How to Know Right from Wrong.' The formula asks four questions based on three verses in 1 Corinthians:
1. '"Everything is permissible for me"--but not everything is beneficial' (1 Corinthians 6:12).
Question 1: Is it helpful--physically, spiritually, and mentally?
2. '"Everything is permissible for me"--but I will not be mastered by anything' (1 Corinthians 6:12). Question 2: Does it bring me under its power?
3. 'Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall' (1 Corinthians 8:13).
Question 3: Does it hurt others?
4. 'So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God' (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Question 4: Does it glorify God?”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“The same grace that brings salvation teaches us to renounce ungodly living.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“We need to ask God daily to search our hearts for sin that we cannot or will not see.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“Holiness has to do with more than mere acts. Our motives must be holy, that is, arising from a desire to do something simply because it is the will of God. Our thoughts should be holy, since they are known to God even before they are formed in our minds.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“But the holiness of Jesus was more than simply the absence of actual sin. It was also a perfect conformity to the will of His Father.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“Tenemos que aprender a seguir el ejemplo de Cristo, que fue movido a compasión por los pecadores y que podía orar por ellos incluso cuando lo estaban clavando a la cruz en el Calvario.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
“Holiness and usefulness are linked together.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
Jerry Bridges
Born place: in Tyler, Texas, The United States
Born date December 4, 1929
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