Inspirational Quotes by Jerry Bridges

“If you and I are to appropriate God's grace in our times of need, we must see His sovereignty ultimately ruling in all the circumstances of our lives. And when those circumstances are difficult, disappointing, or humiliating, we must humble ourselves under His mighty hand.”

“But be it ever so small in our own eyes, when we sin we also break God’s law. And Scripture says, “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it” (James 2:10). God’s law is seamless, one complete whole. So when we break any of it, we break the whole law.”

“the beginning, directs and orchestrates millions of events and circumstances every day.”

“We need to work at ensuring that our commitment to holiness is a commitment to God, not to our own self-esteem.”

“The Bible speaks not of God’s laws, as if many of them, but of God’s Law as a single whole.”

“That is, humility should be as much a part of us as the clothes we wear. We wouldn’t think of appearing before other people without our clothes. And we shouldn’t think of appearing before other people without deliberately clothing ourselves with an attitude of humility.”

“This is what faith is -trusting in Jesus Christ alone as one's Savior.”

“But on the whole, we appear to be more concerned about the sins of society than we are the sins of the saints.”

“It is so easy for us to stand apart from the culture and do no more than express self-righteous judgmentalism toward it. But those of us who grieve deeply over our own sin will not do this. Instead we will mourn over the sins and wickedness of our nation and will pray most urgently that, just as we want God to be merciful to us, so we want Him to be merciful to our nation as a whole. This will be another expression of humility in action.”

“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.”

“It means we believe that God causes all events in our lives, whether good or bad as we judge them, to work together to conform us more and more into the likeness of Christ. It means we give thanks in all circumstances - not for the circumstance considered in itself, but for God's promise to use these circumstances to conform us more to Christ.”

“GRACE FOR GLORY My grace is sufficient for you. (2 CORINTHIANS 12:9)   God’s grace is not given to make us feel better but to glorify Him. Modern society’s subtle, underlying agenda is good feelings. We want the pain to go away. We want to feel better in difficult situations. But God wants us to glorify Him in those circumstances. Good feelings may or may not come, but that’s not the issue. The issue is whether we honor God by the way we respond to our circumstances. God’s grace — the enabling power of the Holy Spirit — is given to help us respond in such a way. God’s grace is sufficient. The Greek verb for is sufficient in 2 Corinthians 12:9 is translated “will be content” in 1 Timothy 6:8: “If we have food and clothing, with these we will be content” (NIV). This helps us understand what sufficient means. Food and clothing refer to life’s necessities, not luxuries. If we have the necessities, we’re to be content, realizing they’re sufficient. So it is with God’s grace in the spiritual realm. God always gives us what we need, perhaps sometimes more, but never less. The spiritual equivalent of food and clothing is simply the strength to endure in a way that honors God. Receiving that strength, we’re to be content. We would like the “luxury” of having our particular thorn removed, but God often says, “Be content with the strength to endure that thorn.” We can be confident He always gives that. John Blanchard said, “So he [God] supplies perfectly measured grace to meet the needs of the godly. For daily needs there is daily grace; for sudden needs, sudden grace; for overwhelming need, overwhelming grace. God’s grace is given wonderfully, but not wastefully; freely but not foolishly; bountifully but not blindly.”77   Transforming Grace”

“The perfect righteousness that we pursue is unattainable in this life. But if we hunger and thirst for it and diligently pursue it, over time we will grow more and more into the person God wants us to be.”

“Grace is part of the very nature of God, and He cannot change. He is indeed the generous landowner of the parable in Matthew 20:1-16, continually going to the marketplace of life to find those in need of a day's wages so He can bring them into His vineyard and then reward them out of all proportion to their labors.”

“If God's blessings were dependent on our performance, they would be meager indeed. Even our best works are shot through with sin - with varying degrees of impure motives and lots of imperfect performance. We're always, to some degree, looking out for ourselves, guarding our flanks, protecting our egos. It's because we don't realize the utter depravity of the principle of sin remaining in us and staining everything we do that we entertain any notion of earning God's blessings through our obedience. And because we don't fully grasp that Jesus paid the penalty for all our sins, we despair of God's blessing when we've failed to live up to even our own desires to please God. Your worst days are never so bad that you're beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you're beyond the need of God's grace.”

“TWO STANDARDS On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (MATTHEW 22:40) Have you thought about what it means to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37, NIV)? Here are a few obvious aspects: You seek fellowship with Him and long to gaze upon His beauty (Psalm 27:4). You rejoice in meditating on His Word and rise early to pray (Psalm 119:97; Mark 1:35). You always delight to do His will (Psalm 40:8). A regard for His glory governs and motivates everything you do (1 Corinthians 10:31) - eating and drinking, working and playing, buying and selling, reading and speaking, even driving. You're never discouraged or frustrated by adverse circumstances because you're confident God is working all things together for your good (Romans 8:28). You're always content because you know He'll never leave you or forsake you (Hebrews 13:5). Or look at what Jesus called the "second" commandment: "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39, NIV). Among other things, this would mean that you never show selfishness, irritability, peevishness, or indifference in your dealings with others. You take a genuine interest in their welfare and seek to promote their interests, honor, and well-being. You never regard them with prideful superiority or talk about their failings. You never resent any wrongs they do to you, but instead are always ready to forgive. You always treat them as you would have them treat you.' Do you begin to grasp some of the implications of what it means to obey these two commandments? Most of us don't even think about them in the course of a day, let alone aspire to obey them. Instead we content ourselves with avoiding major outward sins and performing accepted Christian duties.”

“Our first problem is that our attitude toward sin is more self-centered than God-centered. We're more concerned about our own "victory" over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve God's heart. We cannot tolerate failure in our struggle with sin chiefly because we are success-oriented, not because we know it's offensive to God.”

“Because conduct determines character, and character determines conduct, it's vitally important - extremely necessary- that we practice godliness every day. That's why Peter said, "Make every effort to supplement your faith with ... godliness" (2 Peter 1:5-6). There can be no letup in our pursuit of godly character. Every day that we're not practicing godliness we're being conformed to the world of ungodliness around us. Granted, our practice of godliness is imperfect and falls far short of the biblical standard. Nevertheless, let us press on to know Christ and to be like Him.”

“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.”

“Romans 3:19-26. To help us examine that passage, I will quote it here in its entirety. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished — he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”