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Chapter five in The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges talks about the change that is made in us and being made in us when we come to believe in Christ. He calls it a change of kingdoms. We die to sin (Romans 6) and that is true whether we realize it or not. Then we are called to live as if it is true (because it is). Christ died for our sins and we then are enabled to pursue holiness. We do have to work to overcome the habit of sin (and overcoming our sinful nature can make stopping smoking and drinking and drugs look simple).

The struggle, of course, is that we still have our sin natures and Satan does a good job of confusing us about what God has done for us and what we need to do. The next chapter goes into more detail about the indwelling sin and what we must keep in mind to overcome it.

First – sin dwells in the heart and the heart is unsearchable and deceitful. We do not always understand our own motives so we are fighting “with an enemy we cannot fully search out.”

The heart is also deceitful. It excuses, rationalizes, and justifies our actions. It blinds us to entire areas of sin in our lives. It causes us to deal with sin using only halfway measures, or to think that mental assent to the Word of God is the same as obedience. (p 64)

In the discussion of why we must let the Holy Spirit search our heart and expose our sins to us, I recognize myself in both traps of morbid introspection (the Accuser loves this one) and missing the real issues. The first trap is where I can become obsessed with what I’ve done and never accept God’s forgiveness. As I was talking about this with Alison tonight I explained that I am punitive when I look at my own sins. My need is to punish (and not always just when looking at my own sins). But God is restorative – and that means I need to trust Him when He says I am forgiven and then move on to grow and improve, not stay stuck in my little mud-hole picking open my wounds again.

The second trap is just as likely, and I think they often go hand in hand. If I’m down in my mud-hole worrying the same sin over and over, I am less likely to notice something different that God is ready for me to work on. It’s almost easier to bemoan the sin I’m familiar with than to actually wrestle with some sin I’m not ready to get rid of yet.

Second – indwelling sin works largely through our desires and those desires can be insatiable. When our desires overcome our reason we sin.

Third – indwelling sin deceives our understanding and reasoning. This begins with drawing away from watchfulness, and then from obedience. We become overconfident. We abuse grace by sinning knowing we’ll be forgiven, and when we ask for forgiveness we focus more on the mercy than on the holiness and judgment of God. We begin to doubt God’s Word – why obey it if it isn’t true.

Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom. (Song of Solomon 2:15)

I must stay watchful, open to the leading of the Holy Spirit for where I need to work and where I need to accept forgiveness and move on. If I let down my guard, my sinful nature will jump at the advantage. The fall into sin can take months or years, but it will happen. I am to pursue holiness, that means I must work at it, every day.

I believe the Word of God, and that Word tells me to pursue holiness – to be holy because God is holy. Some days (and months) I’m better at this than others.

Because I believe the Word of God, I also care about family and friends and their spiritual walk. I am naturally not a meddler and am not likely to judge someone else’s decisions or choices unless it is obviously sinful. But I struggle with that because I’m watching the devastation caused by my not noticing the past few years of Dave and of Alison’s struggles. I believe that Dave began wandering away – letting down his guard, becoming overconfident in certain areas, ignoring “little” sins, and then even doubting the very Word he cherished at one time. The little foxes got into his vineyard and I never noticed. Well, maybe I noticed one or two, but I always thought there was time to deal with it and I assumed David was dealing with it correctly. I don’t know if Anthony or I could have done anything to really stop this from happening, but perhaps some conversations should have been deeper with more prayer for discernment.

Post title from Galaxy Quest – a fantastic movie:

Sir Alexander Dane : You’re just going to have to figure out what it wants. What is its motivation?
Jason Nesmith : It’s a rock monster. It doesn’t have motivation.
Sir Alexander Dane : See, that’s your problem, Jason. You were never serious about the craft.

But seriously…

Chapter four in The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges is about the Holiness of Christ. Bridges argues that we must understand the righteousness of Christ so that when we become more aware of our own sin we can be reassured by the fact that it is Christ’s righteousness that is credited to us. And we can look to the life of Christ as an example of holy living that we should follow.

Christ’s holiness was not just the absence of actual sin, but a perfect conformity to the will of His Father. This includes His actions, attitudes, and motives. We can rest in this, we can flee to this when we are under attack and when we are discouraged by our own sinfulness.

Bridges refers to the hymn Just As I Am, Without One Plea (see below), which is a hymn we will be singing this Sunday in church. As the Holy Spirit begins to open our eyes and reveal our sins to us, Satan attempts to use this very knowledge to discourage us and convince us we are unworthy and not really Christians. We must remember that we are unworthy but we bring nothing to our own salvation. We receive that freely from Christ.

So, if Christ is to be our example of a holy life, we must look at the question “do I always do what pleases God?” This is how Christ presented his life (John 8:29). Is it how I could present my own? Bridges points out we often do good things for the admiration of others, not to please God. We do many things just to please ourselves, with no thought for the glory of God. The high road we are to pursue is to please God in all we do.

This reminded me of a great blog entry I read earlier today by Paul Tripp. The title is Parenting: It’s Never an Interruption and it deals with the motives of the parent. Here’s how he puts it:

Along with this, you and I must remember that our Lord loves our children more than we ever could, and his commitment to their growth and change is more faithful and persevering than ours could ever be. Because of this, in his grace and love, he will manufacture moments that expose the needy hearts of our children to us. He will faithfully employ the little moments of everyday life to expose to us and our children their need of rescuing and forgiving grace. And he will not do this only at the moments that you feel are appropriate and when you feel most prepared.

Then he relays a great story of an outing with his family where he had one set of expectations and God apparently had a different set. (bolding mine)

What’s going on is that a God of grace is taking a mundane moment of daily family life and using it to do something wonderful for my children and for me. He is making the condition of their hearts visible in order to produce concern in me that would hopefully result in awareness and a desire to change in them. But I’m not at all encouraged in this moment with what God is doing. You see, I’m not angry in the parking lot because my children are sinners. No, I’m angry that God has exposed their sin, and because he has, I have to forsake my agenda for the day and parent them! It all seems like a huge imposition, a hassle that I just didn’t want to deal with.

A few paragraphs later he sums it up with this line: “But my problem is that there are moments when I tend to love my little kingdom of one more than I love his”

That right there is my single biggest problem. I really recognize this, even thought I do not parent children day-to-day. In my interactions with my husband, my mother, my friends, my co-workers – what is my motivation? Do I take my craft (living a holy life) seriously?

Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;
Sight, riches, healing of the mind,
Yea, all I need in Thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, Thy love unknown
Hath broken every barrier down;
Now, to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, of that free love
The breadth, length, depth, and height to prove,
Here for a season, then above,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

I am listening to The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges. It’s a book I’ve read in the past and it happens to be the free audio book from Christianaudio.com this month. So, I listen to a chapter in the morning a few times a week and then I go back and read that same chapter later that day or the next. There is plenty to think about and meditate on in this book.

The book progresses from the broad and necessary truths to the practical responses to those truth. Chapter 2 starts it off by talking about the holiness of God. Having just read the book The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul in Nov/Dec this was a brief refresher.

Bridges reflects that the holiness of God means He is completely without evil and perfectly consistent with His character. God doesn’t struggle to know what is right or to do what is right. This should reassure us, as we can trust that God is always perfect and just in His actions toward us. Bridges admits we are often tempted to accuse God of being unfair. My Bible reading plan has me in Job again and he is complaining that he would rather be dead, in fact rather never even have been born. Much later, of course, Job stops talking such foolishness.

From there Bridges talks about how dangerous it is to imply that God is not holy. He quotes Stephen Charnock who said

It is less injury to Him to deny His being, than to deny the purity of it; the one makes Him no God, the other a deformed, unlovely, and a detestable God…he that saith God is not holy speaks much worse than he that saith there is no God at all.

Now comes the rub. Not only is God holy but He calls us to be holy. Our actions, motives, everything. One sentence that Bridges wrote really stood out for me.

Probably none of us ever imagines that God is actively soliciting us to do evil, but we may feel that God has put us in a situation where we have no choice.

The biblical reference is that of Saul making the sacrifice himself because Samuel didn’t come when he said he would. (1 Sam 13:8-14) That chapter just came up in my reading plan yesterday. Saul justified his actions, not realizing that his performing that action was much worse than anything that would happen if Samuel was late. But God is holy and He hates sin. We must learn to hate sin too. This can be difficult, especially those little sins we secretly love and hold on to.

Another form this can take is deciding what is actually “righteous anger” and what is a sinful anger and desire for vengeance that should be left to the Lord. There are times where it seems wrong to forgive someone who has done something terrible and hurtful. And there are consequences that should not be avoided. But holding on to our anger and justifying it by the behavior of the other person is wrong. An example for me recently would be anger at my brother-in-law David. Seeing the pain he is causing his family and the mean way he is treating them (is ignoring someone a form of treatment?) makes me so angry some times. But I have learned from prior experience that when I get angry at David, I must immediately stop and pray for him. This serves two purposes. It lifts up a man who needs God’s salvation, and it reminds me that whatever God does (either turning David’s heart or punishing him for his sins) is better than anything I can come up with. It makes my desires for vengeance or pain or a deep recognition of just how wrong he is look small and petty. David is both safer and in much more danger in the hands of a holy God.

On a related note, Bridges then makes an interesting point that the Bible shows that “God may judge the sins of His saints more severely than those of the world.” King David, for his adultery and murder, was beset with violence and turmoil the rest of his reign. Moses, for one act of unbelief, was forbidden to enter the Promise Land.

Another point of interest in the chapter included how we think we will sin a little and then ask for forgiveness later. Not only what Paul was so indignant about when he asked if anyone really thought they should sin the more so there would be more grace in their forgiveness. (Romans 6:1) But the even worse step of just thinking that we can sin now knowing we’ll be forgiven, not even thinking of the cost of the grace we are taking for granted.

The next chapter states that holiness is not an option and gives 4 reasons:

• holiness is required for fellowship with God – He hates sin so to be in fellowship with Him we must be serious about sin and not continue to cherish a sin once it is revealed to us
• holiness is required for our own well being – He disciplines us because He loves us
• holiness is necessary for effective service to God – the Holy Spirit is grieved by a life of ongoing sin
• holiness is necessary for our assurance of salvation – there will be fruit of our salvation evident in our lives

Living a life of holiness is a struggle and we can begin to see some dark and dirty corners of our own life when we pursue holiness earnestly. That’s why the next chapter is about the good news!

The first week I was here at Alison’s, after David left, I came across the book Fresh Faith by Jim Cymbala (Brooklyn Tabernacle). I picked it up and read the first chapter that week and was struck by the imagery of Satan stealing our faith, our first love, our zeal for God, destroying our marriages. I finally got back to it tonight and found a lot of good reminders of the need for faith in God, and what that means in our daily lives.

The greatest Christian is not the one who has achived the most but rather the one who has received the most. God’s grace, love, and mercy flow through him abundantly because he walks in total dependence.

Paul also knew that God uses trouble and trials of all kinds to heighten that sensitivity so that by faith we can use divine resources. p.47

Don’t give up today because you feel weak and overwhelmed – that’s the very place where divine power will uphold you if you only believe and call out to the Lord in total dependence. p. 47

Reminders that even in the darkest times, we need to hold on and we can trust that God is faithful. He has a plan and He is at work, even in the face of great sin.

Those who walk in faith are still realists. They often admit that they don’t know how everything is going to work out; but they insist that their God will supply nonetheless. p. 95.

Declare war on the cleverness that is a mask for unbelief.

Bring your problem to God, as a little child would, in total confidence that he alone can fix whatever is broken. p. 95

How often do I try to do things on my own. Even while saying it requires prayer and faith in God I am still standing on my own strength. But then the pain is too much to bear on my own – this drives me to my knees and to God.

Many times in life, God waits while a situation goes from bad to worse. He appears to let it slip over the edge, so that you and I say, “There’s no way now for this ever to work out.” But that is the point when the omnipotent God intervenes in our hopelessness and says, “Oh really? Watch this…!” p. 99

Can I believe in Him? Can I trust Him even when I see Alison’s pain? Even when I am the one in pain?

God is looking for a people who will believe him and take him at his word no matter what the circumstances say or what other people are telling us. p. 116

Then I run across this and I just want to see David, to talk to him, to get him to talk to me. I just want to understand what he’s feeling and thinking.

I have often sat in my office, trying to counsel couples who know that they are in trouble. They are entirely accurate as to the surface facts of their situation. But they are also so negative and pessimistic that you want to scream. There is no faith or expectancy for what god hs promised to do for his people. p. 119

But right now David won’t talk to me or any of us. Oh sure, he sends cordial formal emails to Alison to handle logistics, but he is not really communicating, sharing his thoughts and feelings, explaining anything. And certainly not showing any interest in what any of us think or feel.

We like to control the map of our life and know everything well in advance. But faith is content just knowing that God’s promise cannot fail. p. 145

I don’t get to know what David is thinking or why he is doing this. Can I live with that? Can I let go of that frustration and pain and trust God?

God’s purpose for us is a lot deeper than just how we feel at the moment. He lovingly permits pressures and trials, lets the bottom fall out from time to time, so that our wrong reactions come right to the surface. We see our lack of faith, our lack of love – and that is his aim.

God intentionally places us in situations in which we are beyond our ability to cope. He permits difficulties to come with our children , and we say “Why, God?” He is refining us. He is teaching us to trust him. He is drawing us away from our strength to his. He knows exactly how much heat to allow in our lives. He will never scorch us, but if we jump out of one cauldron because it’s too hot, he has others waiting. The dross must be removed. p. 186

…. Shall we not trust Christ and surrender to this process, rather than fighting it? Remember that it is a process of love to bring beauty and growth and enlargement in our lives. It is God’s way of sanctifying us. And we must never forget that the holier the life, the more true happiness we experience within. It is the spiritual impurities that rob us of God’s best. p. 187

Oh but the purification process can be so painful.

Satan wants us to focus on the problem, not the Provider. p.207

I fear for David. I hurt for Alison and those 3 boys. I struggle with my own unbelief. My God is faithful, holy, just, merciful. I rest in Him, I trust Him. I will walk in faith in Him.