The Pursuit of Holiness

by Jerry Bridges

"Be holy, for I am holy" commands God to His people. But holiness is something that is often missed in the Christian's daily life. According to author Jerry Bridges, that's because we're not exactly sure what our part in holiness is. In The Pursuit of Holiness, he helps us see clearly just what we should rely on God to do--and what we should accept responsibility for ourselves.

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Paperback, 160 pages

Published January 31st 2006 by NavPress (first published 1978)

tags: theology, spirituality, faith, christianity, christian non fiction, religion, nonfiction, christian living, discipleship, christian

Book Quotes

“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

“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

topics: Compromise, Disobedience, Rebellion, Sin

“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

topics: God, Sin, Victory

“Even our tears of repentance need to be washed in the blood of the Lamb.”

― Jerry Bridges

topics: Holiness, Sin, Sorrow, Tears

“As we grow in holiness, we grow in hatred of sin; and God, being infinitely holy, has an infinite hatred of sin.”

― Jerry Bridges

topics: Hatred, Holiness, Sin, Zeal

“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

topics: Critical Spirit, God Holiness, Gossip, Pride, Speck

“As we become soft and lazy in our bodies, we tend to become soft and lazy spiritually.”

― Jerry Bridges

topics: Holiness, Laziness, Lazy

“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

topics: Condemnation, Conviction

“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

topics: Discipline, Holiness, Honesty, Humility, Pray, Prayer

“God wants us to walk in obedience—not victory. Obedience is oriented toward God; victory is oriented toward self.”

― Jerry Bridges

“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

topics: Holiness, Sin

“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

topics: Discouragement, Holiness, Holy Spirit

“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

topics: Actions, Books, Conversation, Holiness, Magazines, Minds, Movies, Music, Television

“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

topics: Disobedience, Holiness, Joy, Sin

“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

topics: God, Holiness, Sin

“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

topics: Holiness, Holy Spirit, Repentance, Sin

“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

“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

topics: Habits, Holiness, Temptation

“The Holy Spirit opens the inner recesses of our hearts and enables us to see the moral cesspools hidden there.”

― Jerry Bridges

topics: Holiness, Holy Spirit, Sin

“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

topics: Christ, God, Holiness

Jerry Bridges

Jerry Bridges is an evangelical Christian author, speaker and staff member of The Navigators. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including The Pursuit of Holiness, which has sold more than one million copies. His devotional Holiness Day By Day garnered the 2009 ECPA Christian Book Award for the inspiration and gift category, and The Discipline Of Grace received a similar award in 1995 for the Christian living category.

Bridges earned his undergraduate degree in engineering at the University of Oklahoma before serving as an officer in the United States Navy during the Korean War.

He joined Christian discipleship organization The Navigators in 1955, where he served as administrative assistant to the Europe Director, office manager for the headquarters office, Secretary-Treasurer of the organization, and as Vice President for Corporate Affairs before moving to a staff development position with the Collegiate Mission.
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