Jerry Bridges Quotes & Sayings

God's Grace is greater than all our sins. Repentance is one of the Christian's highest privileges. A repentant Christian focuses on God's mercy and God's grace. Any moment in our lives when we bask in God's mercy and grace is our highest moment. Higher than when we feel smug in our decent performance and cannot think of anything we need to confess ... That is potentially a glorious moment. For we could at that moment accept God's abundant Mercy and Grace and go forth with nothing to boast of except Christ Himself, or else we struggle with our shame, focusing on that as well as our track record. We fail because we have shifted our attention from Grace and Mercy. One who draws on God's Mercy and Grace is quick to repent, but also slow to sin. — Jerry Bridges

The secret things belong to the LORD our God. — Jerry Bridges

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

May we be as severe with ourselves over our own subtle sins as we are with the vile sins we condemn in others — Jerry Bridges

The fruit of the Spirit is fundamentally relational. Rather than originating with us, it flows to us from our union with Christ, and it flows beyond us to bring us into fellowship with others. The secret of this flow - and our unity with God and others - is humility. — Jerry Bridges

Jesus did not die just to give us peace and a purpose in life; he died to save us from the wrath of God. — Jerry Bridges

We obey God's Law, not to be loved but because we are loved in Christ. — Jerry Bridges

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. — Jerry Bridges

Self-control is not control by oneself through one's own willpower but rather control of oneself through the power of the Holy Spirit. — Jerry Bridges

The atonement was God's extending favor to people who deserved not favor but wrath. The atonement was God's bridging the awful "Grand Canyon" of sin to reach people who were in rebellion against Him. And He did this at infinite cost to Himself by sending Jesus to die in our place. — Jerry Bridges

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. — Jerry Bridges

This is the amazing story of God's grace. God saves us by His grace and transforms us more and more into the likeness of His Son by His grace. In all our trials and afflictions, He sustains and strengthens us by His grace. He calls us by grace to perform our own unique function within the Body of Christ. Then, again by grace, He gives to each of us the spiritual gifts necessary to fulfill our calling. As we serve Him, He makes that service acceptable to Himself by grace, and then rewards us a hundredfold by grace. — Jerry Bridges

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

God's providence is His constant care for and His absolute rule over all His creation for His own glory and the good of His people. — Jerry Bridges

Our goal in the pursuit of godliness should be to grow more in our conscious awareness that every moment of our lives is lived in the presence of God; that we are responsible to Him and dependent on Him. This goal would include a growing desire to please Him and glorify Him in the most ordinary activities of life. Of — 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

There is no point in praying for victory over temptation if we are not willing to make a commitment to say no to it. — Jerry Bridges

Have you ever thought about the wonderful truth that Christ lived His perfect life in your place and on your behalf? Has it yet gripped you that when God looks at you today He sees you clothed in the perfect, sinless obedience of His Son? And that when He says, "This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased," He includes you in that warm embrace? The extent to which we truly understand this is the extent to which we will begin to enjoy those unsearchable riches that are found in Christ. — Jerry Bridges

Perhaps we should stop talking about being faithful to have a quiet time with God each day, as if we were doing something to earn a reward. It would be better to talk about the privilege of spending time with the God of the universe and the importance for our own sake of being consistent in that practice. — Jerry Bridges

Lord, I am willing
To receive what You give.
To lack what You withhold.
To relinquish what You take,
To suffer what You inflict,
To be what you require. — Jerry Bridges

The pursuit of holiness requires sustained and vigorous effort. It allows for no indolence, no lethargy, no halfhearted commitment, and no laissez faire attitude toward even the smallest sins. In short, it demands the highest priority in the life of a Christian, because to be holy is to be like Christ - God's goal for every Christian. — Jerry Bridges

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

The beginning, directs and orchestrates millions of events and circumstances every day. — Jerry Bridges

Sin is not only a series of actions, it is also an attitude that ignores the law of God. But it is even more than a rebellious attitude. Sin is a state of heart, a condition of our inmost being. It is a state of corruption, of vileness, yes, even of filthiness in God's sight. — Jerry Bridges

God is perfectly holy, then we can be confident that His actions toward us are always perfect and just. — Jerry Bridges

Our situation was so desperate that only the death of His own Son on a cruel and shameful cross was sufficient to resolve the problem. — Jerry Bridges

Jesus said, "Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33). We must honestly face the question, "Am I willing to give up a certain practice or habit that is keeping me from holiness?" It is at this point of commitment that most of us fail. We prefer to dally with sin, to try to play with it a little without getting too deeply involved. — Jerry Bridges

Because peace is a fruit of the Spirit, we are dependent upon the Spirit's work in our lives to produce the desire and the means to pursue peace. But we are also responsible to use the means He has given us and to take all practical steps to attain both peace within and peace with others. — Jerry Bridges

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. — Jerry Bridges

Call, believe, hear, and preach. — Jerry Bridges

But on the whole, we appear to be more concerned about the sins of society than we are the sins of the saints. In fact, we often indulge in what I call the "respectable" or "acceptable" sins without any sense of sin. Our — Jerry Bridges

A willingness to share our possessions with one another is a very important aspect of true biblical community. — Jerry Bridges

God will never allow any action against you that is not in accord with His will for you. And His will is always directed to our good. — Jerry Bridges

God does not require a perfect, sinless life to have fellowship with Him, but He does require that we be serious about holiness, that we grieve over sin in our lives instead of justifying it, and that we earnestly pursue holiness as a way of life. — Jerry Bridges

True joy comes only from God and He shares this joy with those who walk in fellowship with Him. — Jerry Bridges

No detail of your life is too insignificant for your heavenly Father's attention. — Jerry Bridges

He (God) permits, for reasons known only to Himself, people to act contrary to and in defiance of His revealed will. But He never permits them to act contrary to His sovereign will. — Jerry Bridges

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

Faith itself has no merit; in fact, by its nature it is self-emptying. It involves our complete renunciation of any confidence in our own righteousness and a relying entirely on the perfect righteousness and death of Christ. — Jerry Bridges

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

If Christ grieved over unrepentant Jerusalem, does He not grieve over unrepentant America as well? If we would fully enter into the fellowship of His sufferings, we must begin to see sin from His point of view. — Jerry Bridges

Peace should be a hallmark of the godly person, first because it is a Godlike trait: God is called the God of peace several times in the New Testament. He took the initiative to establish peace with rebellious men, and He is the author of both personal peace as well as peace among men. Peace should be part of our character also because God has promised us His peace, because He has commanded us to let peace rule in our lives and relationships, and because peace is a fruit of the Spirit and therefore an evidence of His working in our lives. — Jerry Bridges

The solution to staying on the right side of the fine line between using and abusing grace is repentance. The road to repentance is godly sorrow (2 Corinthians 7:10). Godly sorrow is developed when we focus on the true nature of sin as an offense against God rather than something that makes us feel guilty. — Jerry Bridges

Many people erroneously think that God can just forgive our sins because He is a loving God. Nothing could be further from the truth. The cross speaks to us not only about our sin but about God's holiness. — Jerry Bridges

God is worthy of my loving obedience because of who He is, not because of what he does. — Jerry Bridges

Grace is not a matter of God's making up the difference, but of God's providing all the "cost" of salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ. — Jerry Bridges

I grew up in the 1930s Great Depression when many families struggled to make ends meet, and in an area where old-fashioned country gospel music was popular. Later, as an adult with a more mature outlook on Christianity, I realized that a lot of that music was rather shallow. — Jerry Bridges

All fancied sanctification which does not arise wholly from the blood of the cross is nothing better than Pharisaism. If we would be holy, we must get to the cross, and dwell there; else, notwithstanding all our labour, diligence, fasting, praying and good works, we shall be yet void of real sanctification, destitute of those humble, gracious tempers which accompany a clear view of the cross. — Jerry Bridges

Love provides the motive for obeying the commands of the law, but the law provides specific direction for exercising love. — 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 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

Even Christians taking in the teaching of the Bible can be deceived about our own sins. We somehow feel that consent to the teaching of scripture is equivalent to obedience. — Jerry Bridges

Which of us, then, does not offend frequently with our tongue? The real problem, however, is not our tongues but our hearts. — Jerry Bridges

To remember no more is God's way of expressing absolute forgiveness. — Jerry Bridges

God never allows pain without a purpose. — Jerry Bridges

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

The cure for the sin of envy and jealousy is to find our contentment in God — Jerry Bridges

There are more than 150 references to the fear of God in the Bible.6 While the majority of these occur in the Old Testament, there are a sufficient number in the New Testament to convince us that fearing God is indeed an attitude of heart we should cultivate today. — Jerry Bridges

Love is costly. T forgive in love costs us our sense of justice. To serve in love costs us time. To share in love costs us money. Every act of love costs us in some way, just as it cost God to love us. But we are to live a life of love just as Christ loves us and gave Himself for us at great cost to Himself. — Jerry Bridges

As we grow in the Christian life we face increasing danger of spiritual pride. We know the correct doctrines, the right methods, and the proper do's and don'ts. But we may not see the poverty of our own spiritual character. We may not see our critical and unforgiving spirit, our habit of backbiting, or our tendency to judge others. We may become like the Laodiceans of whom our Lord said, 'You say, "I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing." But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked' (Revelation 3:17). — 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

Second, not only does the gospel prepare me to face my sin, it also frees me up to do so. Facing our sin causes us to feel guilty. Of course we feel guilty because we are guilty. And if I believe, consciously or unconsciously, that God still counts my guilt against me, my instinctive sense of self-protection forbids me to acknowledge my sin and guilt, or, at the least, I seek to minimize it. But we cannot begin to deal with a particular manifestation of sin, such as anger or self-pity, until we first openly acknowledge its presence and activity in our lives. So I need the assurance that my sin is forgiven before I can even acknowledge it, let alone begin to deal with it. By — Jerry Bridges

Don't believe everything you think. You cannot be trusted to tell yourself the truth. Stay in The Word. — Jerry Bridges

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

But the reality is that many people are facing nonphysical persecution because of their stand for righteousness. — 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

I've asked people why they think God would probably not use them to share the gospel with someone on a "bad" day. A typical reply is, "I wouldn't be worthy," or "I wouldn't be good enough." Such a reply reveals an all-too-common misconception of the Christian life: the thinking that, although we are saved by grace, we earn or forfeit God's blessings in our daily lives by our performance. — Jerry Bridges

Without this relationship with God, there can be no spiritual relationship with one another. — Jerry Bridges

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

If we are going to persevere as committed disciples of Jesus Christ over the course of our lives, we must always keep the gospel of God's forgiveness through Christ before us. — Jerry Bridges

Anxiety is a sin also because it is a lack of acceptance of God's providence in our lives. — Jerry Bridges

Sin, in the final analysis, is rebellion against the sovereign Creator, Ruler, and Judge of the universe. It resists the rightful prerogative of a sovereign Ruler to command obedience from His subjects. It says to an absolutely holy and righteous God that His moral laws, which are a reflection of His own nature, are not worthy of our wholehearted obedience. — Jerry Bridges

As we grow in holiness, we grow in hatred of sin; and God, being infinitely holy, has an infinite hatred of sin. — Jerry Bridges

Patience is the ability to suffer a long time under the mistreatment of others without growing resentful or bitter. — Jerry Bridges

The same grace that brings salvation teaches us to renounce ungodly living. — Jerry Bridges

God has called every Christian to a holy life. There are no exceptions to this call. It — Jerry Bridges

Our sins are forgiven and we are accepted as righteous by God because of both the sinless life and sin-bearing death of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no greater motivation for dealing with sin in our lives than the realization of these two glorious truths of the gospel. — Jerry Bridges

No, we are not defeated; we are simply disobedient! It might be good if we stopped using the terms 'victory' and 'defeat' to describe our progress in holiness. Rather we should use the terms 'obedience' and 'disobedience. — Jerry Bridges

God in His infinite wisdom knows exactly what adversity we need to grow more and more into the likeness of His Son. He not only knows what we need but when we need it and how best to bring it to pass in our lives. He is the perfect teacher or coach. His discipline is always exactly suited for our needs. He never over trains us by allowing too much adversity in our lives. — Jerry Bridges

The level of our obedience is most often determined by the behavior standard of other Christians around us. — 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

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

So in the midst of our struggle with indwelling sin, we must continually keep our focus on the gospel. We must always go back to the truth that even in the face of the fact that so often "I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing" (Rom 7:19), there is no condemnation. God no longer counts our sins against us (Rom 4:8). Or, to say it another way, God wants us to find our primary joy in our objectively declared justification, not in our subjectively perceived sanctification. Regardless of how much progress we make in our pursuit of holiness, it will never come close to the absolute perfect righteousness of Christ that is ours through our union with him in his life and death. So we should learn to live with the discomfort of the justified life. We should accept the fact that as still-growing Christians we will always be dissatisfied with our sanctification. But at the same time, we should remember that in Christ we are justified. — Jerry Bridges

Practice of true community involves responsibilities and actions that do not come naturally to us. — Jerry Bridges

Faith enables us to obey when obedience is costly or seems unreasonable to the natural mind. — Jerry Bridges

Our very worst days are never beyond the reach of God's grace. — 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

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

Furthermore, even a deep, penetrating sense of our sinfulness does not do justice to the reality of our predicament. Our need is not to be measured by our own sense of need, but by what God had to do to meet that need. — Jerry Bridges

Spread a table in the desert? ... Can he supply meat for his people?' The next two verses — Jerry Bridges

But when we complain about the weather, we are actually complaining against God who sent us our weather. — 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

All sin without distinction - is lawlessness. — Jerry Bridges

holiness is not only expected; it is the promised birthright of every Christian. Paul's — Jerry Bridges

But this is what servant-hood within the fellowship of believers is all about: being alert to the little things that need to be done and then doing them. — Jerry Bridges

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

God never grants justification without also giving sanctification at the same time ... Sanctification in us begins as an instantaneous act of the Holy Spirit and is carried forward by His continued action in our lives. — Jerry Bridges

As we grow in the knowledge of God's holiness, even though we are growing in the practice of holiness, it seems the gap between our knowledge and our practice always gets wider. This is the Holy Spirit's way of drawing us to more and more holiness. — Jerry Bridges

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

Only conduct arising from love is worthy of the name obedience. — Jerry Bridges