We’re more concerned about our own “victory” over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve God’s heart.
Our duty is found in the revealed will of God in the Scriptures. Our trust must be in the sovereign will of God as He works in the ordinary circumstances of our daily lives for our good and His glory.
Every day that we’re not practicing godliness we’re being conformed to the world of ungodliness around us.
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.
It is clear from our Lord’s prayer that He does not intend for us to withdraw from contact with the world of non-Christians (John 17:15). Instead, He said we are to be ‘the salt of the earth’ and ‘the light of the world’ (Matthew 5:13-14).
Trust is not a passive state of mind. It is a vigorous act of the soul by which we choose to lay hold on the promises of God and cling to them despite the adversity that at times seeks to overwhelms us.
Our worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.
But God has not called us to be like those around us. He has called us to be like Himself. Holiness is nothing less than conformity to the character of God.
Even our tears of repentance need to be washed in the blood of the Lamb.
As we grow in holiness, we grow in hatred of sin; and God, being infinitely holy, has an infinite hatred of sin.
It is not the importance of the thing, but the majesty of the Lawgiver, that is to be the standard of obedience.~Andrew Bonar~
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.
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.
The Holy Spirit opens the inner recesses of our hearts and enables us to see the moral cesspools hidden there.
It is not the fact that we are united in common goals or purposes that makes us a community. Rather, it is the fact that we share a common life in Christ.
A willingness to share our possessions with one another is a very important aspect of true biblical community.
Practice of true community involves responsibilities and actions that do not come naturally to us.
Biblical community is first of all the sharing of a common life in Christ.
No, we are not defeated; we are simply disobedient! It might be good if we stopped using the terms ‘victory’ and ‘defeat’ to describe our progress in holiness. Rather we should use the terms ‘obedience’ and ‘disobedience.
… self-control is not control by oneself through one’s own willpower but rather control of oneself through the power of the Holy Spirit.
We cannot effectively pursue holiness without the Word of God stored up in our minds where it can be used by the Holy Spirit to transform us. Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace, 180