Chasing after Godliness - The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges
The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges will inspire you to run hard after God without falling into legalistic self-effort!
It is good to desire holiness. I’m learning by reading Jerry Bridges’ book The Pursuit of Holiness that a true desire for holiness will also be accompanied by a pursuit after holiness.
Bridges lays out one way that this pursuit of holiness could look like, as we expose ourselves to God’s Word. First, we recognize that the Spirit wrote the Scripture. Then, we learn the Scripture by reading and hearing. Since learning the Scripture doesn’t always come naturally to us, it requires that we intentionally apply ourselves to the study and memorization of God’s Word.
I’m grateful for the privilege to hear God’s Word preached in my native language, to have an abundance of Bibles and study materials to help with my intake of Scripture, and a local church community of fellow believers to walk beside me and hold me accountable in my study of God’s Word. Yet, even with all of those resources, I still need to depend on God’s grace to actually take advantage of them and hide the Word in my heart.
When we’ve, by God’s grace, begun to internalize the Scripture, then the Holy Spirit will help us to apply Scripture by bringing what we’ve learned to our mind when we face trials and temptations. This is where the rubber meets the road, and how you and I can live in obedience to the will of God.
Yet, our sinful habits are not broken overnight. God often changes us very slowly, day by day, as we take small steps in our pursuit of holiness. Jerry Bridges writes, “The person who is disciplining himself toward holiness falls many times, but he doesn’t quit.”
Don’t quit in your pursuit of holiness. God is there to pick you back up, even if you fall a thousand times. He is our Good Shepherd, and He will not give up on us.
Here are some of my favorite takeaways/quotes from this NavPress title:
“The farmer cannot do what God must do, and God will not do what the farmer should do.” (10)
Daily intake of God’s Word is a huge step toward the pursuit of holiness.
I’ve become increasingly convinced that discipline and consistency is one of the keys to growing in every area, and Jerry Bridges here makes that connection in the area of holiness.
Holiness is being separated from sin, to be set apart for God. God is perfectly holy.
Our personal holiness, as essential as it is, never merits our justification before God. We are made righteous by faith in the finished work of Christ alone.
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