Today’s Scripture: Romans 6:14

“For sin will have no dominion over you.”

In Micah 7:19 we find another powerful metaphor of how God deals with our sin through Jesus Christ: “you will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”

The picture is of God vigorously disposing of our sins by hurling them overboard. He doesn’t just drop them over the side; he hurls them as something to be rid of and forgotten.

God is eager to cast away our sins. Because the sacrifice of his Son is of such infinite value, he delights to apply it to sinful men and women. God is not a reluctant forgiver, but a joyous one. His justice having been satisfied and his wrath having been exhausted, he’s now eager to extend his forgiveness to all who trust in his Son as their propitiatory sacrifice.

Continue reading The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – Our Sins Hurled Away →

Today’s Scripture: Matthew 20:13

“Friend, I am doing you no wrong.”

The parable of the generous landowner in Matthew 20 is sandwiched between two almost identical statements from Jesus: “But many who are first will be last, and the last first” (Matthew 19:30). “So the last will be first, and the first last” (Matthew 20:16). How should we understand these words?

I believe Jesus is asserting the sovereign prerogative of God to dispense his favors as he pleases. I don’t think his words are meant to be taken in an absolute sense, as if this would always be the case; rather, there’s often no apparent correlation between what one seemingly deserves and what he or she receives. The whole point of the parable was to respond to the attitude Peter expressed to Jesus in Matthew 19:27: “see, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” R. C. H. Lenski summarized Peter’s assumption with this statement: “The more we do, the more we earn, and the more God owes us.”

Continue reading The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – The First Last, the Last First →

Today’s Scripture: Psalm 119:25

“Give me life according to your word!”

How can we grow in a conscious sense of dependence on Christ? Through the discipline of prayer. Prayer is the tangible expression of our dependence. We may think we’re dependent on Christ, but if our prayer life is meager or perfunctory, we thereby deny it. We’re in effect saying we can handle our spiritual life through self-discipline and our innate goodness. Or perhaps we’re not even committed to the pursuit of holiness.

The writer of Psalm 119 teaches us about the discipline of prayer in pursuing holiness. We usually think of it as the Psalm about the Word of God, but more accurately it’s an expression of the psalmist’s ardent desire and commitment in pursuing holiness. Twenty-two times the psalmist pleaded for God’s help in obeying his law, as in these words of prayer: “Teach me, o Lord, the way of your statutes. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments. Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!” (Psalm 119:33-36).

Continue reading The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – The Discipline of Prayer →

Today’s Scripture: Isaiah 43:25

“I will not remember your sins.”

Not only has God blotted out our sins, he has further promised never to remember our sins, never to bring them to his mind again.

What an overwhelming thought! What joy this should bring to our hearts. Think of one of your more recent sins, of which you’re now ashamed. It may have been an unkind word, a resentful attitude, or a lustful thought. Whatever it might be, God says he has put it out of his mind; he remembers it no more.

To remember no more is God’s way of expressing absolute forgiveness. In Hebrews 8:12 (which quotes Jeremiah 31:34), God said, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (NIV). And again in Hebrews 10:17-18, he said, “?heir sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’ and where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin” (NIV). Note that in both passages “remembering no more” is equated with forgiveness.

Continue reading The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – Never Again Remembered →

Today’s Scripture: 1 Corinthians 3:7

“Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”

There’s no doubt that disciplined people, both believers and unbelievers, can effect change in themselves. But in the self-discipline approach to holiness, a major temptation is to rely on a regimen of spiritual disciplines instead of on the Holy Spirit.

I believe in spiritual disciplines, and I seek to practice them. But those disciplines are not the source of our spiritual strength. The Lord Jesus Christ is, and the Spirit’s ministry is to apply his strength in our lives. To paraphrase 1 Corinthians 3:7, we can plant and water, but we cannot make things grow. Only the Spirit can do that. We must plant and water if we’re to make progress in holiness, but only the Spirit can change us more and more into the likeness of Jesus.

Continue reading The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – The Self-Discipline Approach →

Today’s Scripture: Isaiah 43:25

“I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake.”

God uses several metaphors and colorful expressions to assure us that our sins have been literally carried away by our Lord Jesus Christ. One of them is in Psalm 103:12: “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (NIV). Here was an infinite distance, as great as human vocabulary could express.

Jesus not only bore our sins on the cross, he carried them away an infinite distance. He removed them from the presence of God and from us forever. They can no longer bar our access to God’s holy presence. Now “we have confidence”—or “boldness” as the King James Version more strikingly puts it—to enter God’s presence (Hebrews 10:19).

Continue reading The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – Behind God’s Back →

Today’s Scripture: Galatians 6:2

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

In the Scriptures, forbearance, or tolerance, is associated with love, the unity of the believers, and the forgiveness of Christ. In Ephesians 4:2-3, Paul said that we’re to live “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” Peter told us that “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8); love for the other person causes us to overlook or tolerate his shortcomings.

Continue reading The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional –Patience with Others’ Shortcomings →

Today’s Scripture: Leviticus 16:22

“The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area.”

The greatest scapegoat in all of history is the Lord Jesus Christ.

The word is never used of him in the Bible, but it is used of a male goat in the Old Testament sacrificial system which pictured the one great sacrifice of Jesus in his death. Each year this elaborate system of sacrifices reached its climax on the great day of atonement, when two male goats were selected.

One was to be killed and its blood sprinkled on and before the mercy seat in the Most Holy Place where God symbolically dwelt (Leviticus 16:15-19). This goat’s death as a sacrifice to God symbolized our Lord’s propitiatory sacrifice for us on the cross.

The priest would lay his hands on the head of the second goat “and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins.” Then the goat would be led “away into the wilderness,” never to be seen again. This goat was called the scapegoat because all the guilt of the people was symbolically transferred to it, and their sins carried away into the desert (verses 20-22).

The death of the first goat symbolized the means of propitiating the wrath of God through the death of an innocent victim substituted in the sinner’s place. The sending away of the second goat set forth the effect of this propitiation, the complete removal of the sins from the presence of the holy God and from his people.

Since both goats represented Christ, we may say Christ became our scapegoat, bearing the guilt of our sins in his propitiatory sacrifice and by that act bearing them away from the presence of his holy Father. (Excerpt taken from The Gospel for Real Life)

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Today’s Scripture: 1 Peter 5:7

“He cares for you.”

When we tell someone, “don’t be anxious,” we’re simply trying to encourage or admonish that person in a helpful way. But when God in his Word tells us, “don’t be anxious,” it has the force of a moral command. It’s his moral will that we not be anxious. Or to say it more explicitly, anxiety is sin.

Anxiety is sin for two reasons. First, it’s a distrust of God. In Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus said that if our heavenly Father takes care of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, will he not much more take care of our temporal needs? When I give way to anxiety, I’m in effect believing that God won’t take care of me.

Continue reading The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – The Sin of Anxiety →

Today’s Scripture: 1 Corinthians 4:7

“What do you have that you did not receive?”

We actually cannot give God anything that he has not first given to us. David recognized this fact when the leaders of Israel gave so generously for the building of the temple. In his prayer of praise to God he said, “Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own” (1 Chronicles 29:14,16).

David knew he and his people had not given anything to God that wasn’t his already. Even our service to God comes from his hand. As the prophet Isaiah said, “Lord, . . . all that we have accomplished you have done for us” (Isaiah 26:12, NIV). Paul summed it up rather conclusively when he said of God, “nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). When our every breath is a gift from God, there’s really nothing left to give that hasn’t been first given to us.

Where does that leave us? It leaves us in the blessed position of being eleventh-hour workers in God’s kingdom (Matthew 20:1-16). It leaves us going home at the end of the day from God’s vineyard profoundly grateful, knowing that the gracious landowner has been generous beyond all measure. In a word, it leaves us content, and “there is great gain in godliness with contentment” (1 Timothy 6:6).

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