Trusting God and ...

I have slowly ever so slowly started the book Trusting God. I'm still at work to finish Holiness By Grace but I wanted to share this quote from Trusting God by Jerry Bridges.

These Two objectives are never antithetical; they are always in harmony with each other. God never pursues His glory at the expense of the good of His people, nor does He ever seek our good at the expense of His glory. He has designed His eternal purpose so that His glory and our good are inextricably bound together. What comfort and encouragement this should be to us. If we are going to learn to trust God in adversity, we must believe that just as certainly as God will allow nothing to subvert His glory, so He will allow nothing to spoil the good He is working out in us and for us.

Holiness by Grace from the chapter Repentance that Sings

Our obedience is not the foundation or condition of God's receiving our repentance; it is the natural outflow of a heart that has experienced grace. Our new willingness to foloow Christ helps reassure us that we have experienced the transforming power of grace.....though there may be many stumbles and setbacks along the path, true repentance leads naturally to new obedience.

(the Bible) cautions against thinking that God will forgive wehre there is no real change of heart. God is not waiting for us to fix our lives before he forgives us, for then none would be forgiven; but he does not promise forgiveness where repentance is not sincere...we also should not think that God will accept repentance from a heart still in rebellion against him.

In light of God's holiness, we will perceive how awful i sthe disease of our sin and how helpless we are against it. Then we will cry out to God for the help that he alone can give. And when his mercy has made us whole , recognizing how great is our rescue we will experience overwhelming joy.

The chapter Escape from Temptation was also excellent and all encompassing. Thoroughly expands on 1 Corinthians 10:13.

Unless we ackowledge how susceptible our humanity makes us, we are far more vulnerable to wrong that we think.

Paul puts the horror of temptation beofre us so that we will not use its commonness as a rationalization for allowing it into our lives.

Temptation has terrible power. Even those with great spiritual privilege are not immune to its influence.

The images ( of the Lord's supper/crusifiction) remind us that God allowed his own Son to experience the consequences of OUR sin.... we are all participants in the wrong that required his life.

There is so SO much more in this chapter, I'm barely scratching the surface but I'll end with this John Owen quote.

Let us consider what regard we ought to have to our own duty and to the grace of God. some would separate these things as inconsistent. If holiness be our duty, they would say, there is no room for grace; and if it be the result of grace there is no place for duty. But our duty and God's grace are nowhere opposed in the matter of sanctification; for one absolutely supposes the other. We cannot perform our duty without the grace of God; nor does God give his grace for any other purpose than that we may perform our duty.