Jerry Bridges Pursuit Of Holiness Quotes & Sayings

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

We are 100 percent responsible for the pursuit of holiness, but at the same time we are 100 percent dependent upon the Holy Spirit to enable us in that pursuit. The pursuit of holiness is not a pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps approach to the Christian life. — Jerry Bridges

The pursuit of holiness must bre anchored in grace; otherwise it is doomed to failure. — 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

It is only as we see His holiness, His absolute purity and moral hatred of sin, that we will be gripped by the awfulness of sin against the Holy God. To be gripped by that fact is the first step in our pursuit of holiness. — 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

Christianity is not a do-it-yourself thing. — Jerry Bridges

The pursuit of holiness must be anchored in the grace of God; otherwise it is doomed to failure — Jerry Bridges

The pursuit of holiness is a joint venture between God and the Christian. No one can attain any degree of holiness without God working in his life, but just as surely no one will attain it without effort on his own part. — 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

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

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