#23 - The Discipline of Grace

I finished The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges before we moved to ABQ. But needless to say, things have been quite crazy over the past month, and I haven't found the time or emotional resolve to write about the book. In fact, at the end of most days, I've been too drained to do much of any substantive reading, just mindless internet reading if anything. But things are starting to settle down, and I'm starting to regain some spiritual fortitude to get back at this discipline.I really loved The Pursuit of Holiness by Bridges and have heard great things about his book, Transforming Grace. In the preface of this book, Bridges explains that it relates the 2 thoughts from each of those books - personal discipline and living by grace. He explains how the relentless pursuit of holiness by personal discipline and God's sanctification needs to be motivated by His glorious grace.

• The pursuit of holiness must be anchored in the grace of God; otherwise it is doomed to failure. That statement probably strikes many people as strange. A lot of Christians seem to think that the grace of God and the vigorous pursuit of holiness are antithetical - that is, in direct and unequivocal opposition to one another. To some, the pursuit of holiness sounds like legalism and man-made rules. To others, an emphasis on grace seems to open the door to irresponsible, sinful behavior based on the notion that God's unconditional love means we are free to sin as we please.

Unfortunately, I have been called a legalist and one who emphasizes works, not grace, because I have exhorted Christians to pursue holiness and to a high standard of commitment to the Lord. I think those people didn't understand that the key to a high standard of commitment to the Lord can only be found in a deeply held dependence on God's grace. Whether we have a good day or a bad day, we are never good enough. We always need God's grace. And the key is the conviction that Christ is enough for us so that we don't need to (really we can't) do anything else. That gives us a freedom to give everything to God because we know that we will never be good enough.

• Regardless of our performance, we are always dependent on God's grace, His undeserved favor to those who deserve His wrath. Some days we may be more acutely conscious of our sinfulness and hence more aware of our need of His grace, but there is a never a day we can stand before Him on our own two feet of performance, when we are worthy enough to deserve His blessing.
• Your 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.
• On a good day, as we perceive it, we tend toward self-righteous Pharisaism. On a not-so-good day we allow ourselves to wallow in a sense of failure and guilt. In fact, it may be more than not-so-good days - it may be weeks or months. We have moved away from the gospel of God's grace and have begun to try to relate to God directly on the basis of our performance rather than through Christ.
• The gospel, applied to our hearts every day, frees us to be brutally honest with ourselves and with God. The assurance of total forgiveness of our sins through the blood of Christ means we don't have to play defensive games anymore. We don't have to rationalize and excuse our sins. We can say we told a lie instead of saying we exaggerated a bit. We can admit an unforgiving spirit instead of continuing to blame our parents for our emotional distress. We can call sin exactly what it is, regardless of how ugly and shameful it may be, because we know that Jesus bore that sin in His body on the cross. With the assurance of total forgiveness through Christ, we have no reason to hide from our sins anymore.

The Gospel is not just for unbelievers. The Gospel is not just for evangelistic sermons at Christmas and Easter. The Gospel is not just funerals and visitations with non-Christian family members. The Gospel is for all of us, every day.

• So if we are to live by the gospel every day, our tendency to compare ourselves with other believers, not to mention unbelievers, must be put away. Rather we must measure ourselves against God's perfect standard and daily confess that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

It's ironic that those who accused me of legalism were actually the ones guilty of it. If the standard is God's perfect righteousness, we all fall short and thus all need grace all the time. The minute we lower the standard to anything else (even in the name of compassion or grace), we have created a man made, legalistic, self-righteous standard that some can merit whether we realize it or not. And thus we have lost grace in doing so.

• It is not our contrition or sorrow for our sin, it is not our repentance, it is not even the passing of a certain number of hours during which we feel we are on some kind of probation that cleanses us. It is the blood of Christ, shed once for all on Calvary 2,000 years ago but appropriated daily or even many times a day, that cleanses our consciences and gives us a renewed sense of peace with God.

Bridges exhorts believers to preach the gospel to yourself daily.

• To preach the gospel to yourself, then, means that you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life. It means that you appropriate, again by faith, the fact that Jesus fully satisfied the law of God, that He is your propitiation, and that God's holy wrath is no longer directed toward you.

One of the greatest dangers to the church is what can be called back door legalism or salvation by grace and sanctification by works. It is a trap so easy to fall into because our sinful pride wants to deceive ourselves into thinking we are pretty good people, or at least, not as bad as some. Out of guilt, we strive to work harder, be more holy and grow more in discipline. But instead, we must let the glorious Gospel of grace be the fuel that drives our relentless, passionate pursuit of holiness.

• This is a book about God's grace and the pursuit of holiness. You can be sure of one thing though: When you set yourself to seriously pursue holiness, you will begin to realize what an awful sinner you are. And if you are not firmly rooted in the gospel and have not learned to preach it to yourself every day, you will soon be discouraged and will slack off in your pursuit of holiness.

Bridges then spends the rest of the book outlining how various disciplines such as convictions, commitment and watching need to be developed but firmly grounded in the gospel. I highly recommend this book.