Today’s Scripture: Psalm 119:105

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

A defining moment in my life occurred very quietly one evening in the first Bible study group I attended. The leader of the study said to us, “The Bible wasn’t given just to increase your knowledge but to guide your conduct.” As obvious as that truth is to me now, at the time it was brand new. It was as if someone had turned on a light in my mind. I saw clearly what I’d been completely oblivious to before.

It wasn’t that I was living what we would consider a sinful lifestyle. Quite the opposite was true. I’d grown up in a church setting, trusted Christ as my savior, read the Bible every day, and even memorized a few Bible verses. But the idea of applying Scripture to specific situations in my daily life had never occurred to me. That night I prayed a simple prayer: “God, starting tonight I want you to use the Bible to guide my conduct.” My whole approach to the Word of God changed overnight, and the Scriptures suddenly became very relevant. That was the beginning of my own personal “pursuit of holiness.”

The Bible is indeed a very relevant book, giving instruction and guidance for our daily lives. In following this instruction, however, we’re continually faced with a series of choices. Of course, life is a constant series of choices from the time we arise in the morning until we go to bed at night. Many of these choices have moral consequences. For example, although the route you choose to drive to work each morning is probably not morally significant, the thoughts you choose to think while you’re driving are moral choices, as is the way you choose to drive.

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Today’s Scripture: 1 Corinthians 6:11

“You were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Sanctification and justification are both gifts from God and expressions of his grace. Though they’re each distinct aspects of salvation, they can never be separated. God never grants justification without also giving sanctification at the same time.

I think of justification and sanctification as being like the jacket and pants of a suit. They always come together. A friend once wanted to give me a suit. He took me to a clothing store, and I walked out with a jacket and matching pants—a complete suit. Neither the jacket nor the pants alone would have been sufficient. I needed both to have what my friend wanted to give me.

Sometimes we think of salvation as more like a sports coat and a pair of slacks. We think God gives us the sports coat of justification by his grace, but we must “buy” the slacks of sanctification by our own efforts. But salvation is like a suit. It always comes with the jacket of justification and the pants of sanctification. God never gives one without the other because both are necessary to have the complete suit of salvation.

Sanctification in us begins as an instantaneous act of the Holy Spirit and is carried forward by his continued action in our lives. This instantaneous act is described in a number of ways in Scripture. It is called the “renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5), making us alive with Christ when we were dead in transgressions and sins (Ephesians 2:1-5). It results in the new creation Paul referred to in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

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Today’s Scripture: John 14:24

“The word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.”

Everything I’ve taught about the disciplines of Bible study, Scripture memorization, continual meditation, and application of Scripture in daily life has been based on Scripture. I have not developed man-made theories about Christian growth. All I’ve done is point out what the Scriptures say about these disciplines. And what Scripture says, God says. If we ignore these disciplines, we’re ignoring God.

We must always remember, though, that practicing these disciplines does not earn us any favor with God. It’s helpful to distinguish between a meritorious cause of God’s blessing and an instrumental cause. The meritorious cause is always the merit of Christ. We can never add to what he has already done to procure God’s blessing on our lives. The instrumental cause, however, is the means or avenues God has ordained to use. God has clearly set forth certain disciplines for us to practice in pursuing holiness. As we practice them, God will use them in our lives, not because we’ve earned his blessing but because we’ve followed his ordained path of blessing.

We also need to keep in mind that the imperative in Romans 12:2 to be transformed immediately follows the imperative of verse 1—to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to him. Both exhortations are based on the mercy of God. The discipline of developing Bible-based convictions, then, should be a response to God’s mercy and grace to us through Christ. If we truly desire to live by grace, we’ll want to respond to that grace by seeking to live lives that are pleasing to God. And we simply cannot do that if we do not practice the disciplines necessary to develop Bible-based convictions. (Excerpt taken from The Discipline of Grace)

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Today’s Scripture: Psalm 119:139

“My zeal consumes me.”

If God’s favor comes to us only on the basis of Christ’s merits, is there any place in the Christian life for the spiritual disciplines, obedience to God, and sacrificial service to him?

Absolutely! There’s no doubt Paul was just as diligent and zealous, probably more so, after he trusted Christ as he was before. We have only to read his own words: “one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

Note the intense expressions Paul used: “straining forward” and “press on.” The first is a graphic picture of a runner straining nerve and muscle to cross the finish line. The phrase “press on” has the idea of vigorous pursuit.

There’s a direct correlation between faith in the righteousness of Christ and zeal in the cause of Christ. The more a person counts as loss his own righteousness and lays hold by faith of the righteousness of Christ, the more he’ll be motivated to live and work for Christ.

Let me ask you two questions: are you trusting in the righteousness of Christ alone as the basis of your right standing with God, or are you still depending on your religious performance, even to a small degree? And if you’ve clearly trusted in Christ alone for your salvation, are you still clinging to the idea that you must now earn God’s favor in this life by your own performance?

May we clearly see that in the unsearchable riches of Christ and in right standing with God that comes from those riches, we have both the assurance of eternal life and God’s favor in this life.

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Today’s Scripture: Romans 15:2

“Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.”

Selfishness is so easy to see in someone else but so difficult to recognize in ourselves. Moreover, there are degrees of selfishness as well as degrees of subtlety in expressing it. One person’s selfishness may be crass and obvious, while ours will likely be more delicate and refined.

Several areas of selfishness may be observed in believers. One of them is selfishness with our interests. Paul wrote in Philippians 2:4, “let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” In using the word interests, Paul was undoubtedly referring to the concerns and needs of other people, but I’m going to use it in a narrow sense to mean subjects we’re interested in.

What are our interests? At this stage of our lives, my wife and I are interested in our grandchildren. We like to talk about them and show pictures of them to our friends. The problem is that our friends like to do the same. So when we’re with them, whose grandchildren will we talk about? The answer, of course, is both if we and our friends are sensitive to the interests of each other. But if one or both couples are not sensitive, the conversation is apt to be one-sided, or else we find ourselves waiting for our turn to share instead of showing a genuine interest in the other couple’s grandchildren.

A good test of the degree of selfishness in our interests would be to reflect on the conversation after you’ve been with someone (or with another couple). Ask yourself how much time you spent talking about your interests compared to listening to the other person. (Excerpt taken from Respectable Sins)

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Today’s Scripture: Ephesians 2:8

“This is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”

I believe that human morality, rather than flagrant sin, is the greatest obstacle to the Gospel today. If you ask the average law-abiding person why he expects to go to heaven, the answer will be some form of “because I’ve been good.” And the more religious a person is, the more difficult it is to realize his or her need for the righteousness of Christ.

Have you renounced any confidence in your own religious experience and trusted solely in Christ’s blood and righteousness? Perhaps you grew up in a highly moral and religious family. You’ve always been good and essentially blameless in the eyes of other people. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. But if your hope of eternal life is based on that goodness, your religion has actually become dangerous to you. It will keep you from heaven.

Or you may think your sin is too great to be forgiven. But the blood of Christ can indeed cleanse us from all sin.

All of us have a natural drift toward a performance-based relationship with God. We know we’re saved by grace through faith—not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9), but we somehow get the idea that we earn blessings by our works. After throwing overboard our works as a means to salvation, we want to drag them back on board as a means of maintaining favor with God. Instead of seeing our own righteousness as table scraps to be dumped, we see it as leftovers to be used later to earn answers to prayer.

We need to remind ourselves every day that God’s blessings and answers to prayer come to us not on the basis of our works, but on the basis of the infinite merit of Jesus Christ.

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Today’s Scripture: Titus 2:13-14

“Jesus Christ . . . gave himself for us . . . to purify for himself a people for his own.”

Holiness or sanctification is an actual conformity within us to the likeness of Christ begun at the time of our salvation and completed when we’re made perfect in his presence. This process of gradually conforming us to the likeness of Christ begins at the very moment of our salvation when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us and to actually give us a new life in Christ. We call this gradual process progressive sanctification, or growing in holiness, because it truly is a growth process.

The holiness we have in Christ is purely objective, outside of ourselves. It’s Christ’s perfect holiness imputed to us because of our union with him, and it affects our standing before God. God is pleased with us because he is pleased with Christ. Progressive sanctification is subjective or experiential and is the work of the Holy Spirit within us imparting to us the life and power of Christ, enabling us to respond in obedience to him.

Both aspects of sanctification are gifts of God’s grace. We deserve neither our holy standing before God nor the Spirit’s sanctifying work in our lives. Both come to us by his grace because of the merit of Jesus Christ.

Progressive sanctification begins in us with an instantaneous act of God at the time of our salvation. God always gives justification and this initial imparting of sanctification at the same time. The author of Hebrews described this truth in this way: “?his is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,’ then he adds, ‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more’” (Hebrews 10:16-17). (Excerpt taken from Transforming Grace)

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Today’s Scripture: Romans 10:4

“Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

Like his fellow Jews, Paul sought to establish his own righteousness through keeping the law (Romans 10:3-4). But there came a time, possibly during his three days of blindness and fasting in Damascus (Acts 9:7-9), when he realized his efforts to become righteous through law-keeping were going nowhere. They kept him from the only means of salvation God has provided. As he realized more clearly the perfect righteousness God has provided through his Son, Jesus Christ, he saw his own efforts to be righteous as no more than garbage to be dumped overboard.

Paul made what I call his “great exchange”—his own righteousness for the perfect righteousness of Christ. He not only threw his own righteousness overboard, but he regarded it as mere garbage compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ as his savior and being credited with his righteousness. He exchanged the garbage of his goodness for the unsearchable riches of Christ.

Of course, Paul could make his great exchange only because God had already made the great exchange described in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him [that is, through union with Christ] we might become the righteousness of God.” God laid our sin upon Christ that he might lay Christ’s righteousness upon us.

Note the subtle wording. Paul exchanged his righteousness through keeping the law for Christ’s righteousness that comes by faith. Yet in 2 Corinthians 5:21, God exchanges our sin for Christ’s righteousness. Our own efforts at righteousness are, at bottom, only sin because they fail to measure up to the perfect righteousness required by God’s law. They’re only scraps to be thrown out as garbage. (Excerpt taken from The Gospel for Real Life)

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Today’s Scripture: Philippians 3:4

“I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh.”

In Philippians 3:4-8, Paul spoke of the loss of his religious credentials as he’d earlier spoken of the loss of a ship’s cargo (in Acts 27:10,22, the only other place in the New Testament where loss is used).

Paul had viewed all of his religious past as something to be grateful for and nothing to be ashamed of. Even in persecuting the church he thought he was working for God. Yet there came a time when he “threw it all overboard”: “Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:7-8).

Paul learned that any confidence in one’s own religious attainments in the issue of salvation is not only useless but downright dangerous, for those very things could keep him from eternal salvation.

Here, however, the analogy to losing a ship’s cargo ends. A ship’s crew (especially the captain) would throw the cargo overboard with deep regret because doing so meant great financial loss. For Paul, however, there was no regret whatsoever. In fact he spoke of his “cargo” of religious background and attainments as rubbish: “I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8). Probably a more accurate and descriptive word for rubbish here is garbage—table scraps or the kind of stuff you put down your garbage disposal.

Paul had come to the conclusion that his religious background was something to be deliberately dumped. Why? Because he’d discovered something far more valuable: the righteousness that comes from God through faith in Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:9).

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Today’s Scripture: John 17:4

“I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.”

Many Christians grew up in homes where parental acceptance was largely based on academic, athletic, musical, or perhaps some other standard of achievement. Often they never quite felt as if they measured up to expectations, regardless of how successful they were. Then they transfer that sense of inadequacy to their relationship with God. They continually wonder: Is God pleased with me? Is He smiling on me with Fatherly favor?

The answer to that question is an unqualified yes. God is smiling on you with Fatherly favor. He is pleased with you because he sees you as holy and without blemish in Christ. Do you want to talk about performance? Then consider that Jesus could say matter-of-factly and without any pretentiousness, “I always do the things that are pleasing to him” (John 8:29).

When our Father looks at us, he does not see our miserable performance. Instead, he sees the perfect performance of Jesus. And because of the perfect holiness of Jesus, he sees us as holy and without blemish.

I like the translation of Ephesians 1:6 in the King James Version: “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” Or to be more direct, God has made us acceptable to himself through our union with Christ. You will never be accepted in yourself. You can never, to use a figure of speech, “scrub yourself clean.”

We never reach the point where we can look inside ourselves to find the holiness we need to stand before a holy God. But God in his grace has provided a perfect holiness in the person of his Son. Through our union with him we have been made holy. (Excerpt taken from Transforming Grace)

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Today’s Scripture: Hebrews 4:12

“For the word of God is living and active.”

We cannot develop Bible-based convictions merely by storing up Bible knowledge, or even by Bible study or Scripture memorization. We come closer as we meditate on Scripture consistently. But convictions are really developed when we begin applying Scripture’s teachings to real-life situations.

My wife and I recently went shopping for a coffee table. We had agreed on the style we wanted and quickly found one at a price within our range. I’m the type of person who’s ready to buy as soon as I find what I like, but my wife is a “shopper.” She likes to look at everything in the store. Sure enough, she soon came upon her “dream” coffee table, a rather uncommon design that she’d dreamed about for years but never thought she would own. As you might guess, it was more expensive.

I started talking about being good stewards of the money God has given us, but God started “talking” to me (through his Spirit’s convicting work) about husbands loving their wives as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25). I realized one of the concrete ways I was to love my wife was to be more sensitive to her dreams and desires. In that situation God desired that I learn more about what it means for husbands to love their wives than about stewarding his resources. But the point of my story is this: I knew Ephesians 5:25. I believed it, had memorized it, and meditated on it. But through the application of it in a real-life situation, I deepened my conviction about it. Since that incident, I’ve found that I’m more sensitive to what it means practically to love my wife as Christ loved the church in a sacrificial, self-giving way.

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Today’s Scripture: Romans 15:33

“May the God of peace be with you.”

Paul said, “since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1, NIV). This is an objective peace. The war is over. The alienation and divine displeasure toward us because of our sin have been removed. We’re no longer objects of wrath. We have peace with God whether we realize it or not. However, to the extent that we understand and believe the truth regarding justification, we’ll experience a subjective peace within our souls. We’ll know that we’ve been brought from a state of condemnation and the prospect of eternal judgment into a state of forgiveness and favor with God.

I well remember the night I trusted Christ as an eighteen-year-old. Outwardly I was a model teenager but not a Christian, though I knew the Gospel message. One night alone in my bed I asked Christ to be my savior. Immediately I had peace in my soul, brought to me by the Holy Spirit. But that experiential peace was possible only because Christ had made peace with God for me through his death on the cross.

There’s nothing you will ever do that makes you acceptable to God. You must be accepted for Christ’s sake, not only when you believe but for all of your life.

Take some time to prayerfully ask yourself some questions: do I have a right relationship with God based on the imputed righteousness of Christ? Am I trusting in Christ alone for my salvation, or am I to some degree relying on my own morality and religious duties? If I know I’m justified through faith in Christ, do I enjoy the reality of it in my daily experience, or do I look to my own performance for acceptance with God? (Excerpt taken from The Gospel for Real Life)

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Today’s Scripture: Psalm 19:8

“The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.”

My son visited a country in which automobile drivers are undisciplined and “free spirited.” He saw cars stopped at a railroad crossing for a passing train. Instead of lining up behind one another to cross in their proper turn, several cars lined up across the entire road. Each driver wanted to be first to cross when the crossing guard was raised. But when the train had passed, cars were also lined up completely across the road on the other side of the tracks. “Freedom” quickly turned to chaos!

That kind of thing happens in a much more serious way when we insist on unqualified freedom from God’s law. We have indeed been set free from the bondage and curse that results from breaking the law. And we’ve been called to freedom from works as a means of obtaining any merit with God. But we haven’t been called to freedom from the law as an expression of God’s will for our daily living.

Continue reading The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – Freedom or Chaos? →

Today’s Scripture: Nehemiah 1:6

“We have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned.”

Of all our subtle, “acceptable” sins, the pride of moral superiority may be the most common, second only to the sin of ungodliness. Although it’s so prevalent, it’s difficult to recognize because we all practice it to some degree. In fact, we seem to get a perverse enjoyment out of discussing how awful society around us is becoming. When we do that, we’re guilty of the pride of moral superiority.

How, then, can we guard against this sin of self-righteousness? First, by seeking an attitude of humility. If we’re morally upright, it’s only because God’s grace has prevailed in us. No one is morally upright by nature. Rather, we all have to say with David, “surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5, NIV). We ought to feel deeply grateful that God by his grace has kept us from, or perhaps rescued us from, the lifestyle of those who practice the flagrant sins we condemn.

Continue reading The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – Moral Superiority →

Today’s Scripture: Proverbs 4:1

“Be attentive, that you may gain insight.”

We need to approach the Scriptures with an attitude of mental discipline. We need both discipline and dependence in the pursuit of holiness, and the same is true in our study of the Scriptures.

There are many Bible study methods and approaches, but common to all of them is an attitude of dependent diligence that’s well expressed in Proverbs 2:1-5: “If you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” The thought of searching the Scriptures with the same intensity that one would search for hidden treasures suggests the value we should place on Scripture’s teaching. We see this value expressed also in Proverbs 7:2: “keep my teaching as the apple of your eye.”

Continue reading The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – Diligence in Receiving God’s Word →

Today’s Scripture: John 14:23

“If anyone loves me, he will keep my Word.”

Although God, through Christ, is our savior and heavenly Father, he’s also still the supreme ruler and moral Governor of his creation. A king’s sons and daughters, even though they’re his children, are still under obligation to obey the laws of his realm. They are no more exempt from the laws than any other citizen. They’re subject to these laws even though they love their father, agree with his laws, and freely and willingly obey them.

We as God’s children are still subject to the laws of his realm. In response to his grace, we should obey in a loving and grateful way. And because God has written his law on our hearts, we’ll usually be in agreement with his law written in his Word. But we’re still to regard God’s law as commands to be obeyed, not merely as expressions of his desires.

Continue reading The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – The White Signs Are Still There →

Today’s Scripture: Psalm 119:104

“Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.”

In Romans 12:1, Paul made a strong appeal for us to commit ourselves to live holy lives pleasing to God. In the following verse, he begins telling us how to carry this out: “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

Paul established a contrast between conforming (or being conformed) to the pattern of this world and being transformed by the renewal of one’s mind. He assumed only two alternatives. Our convictions and values will come either from society around us (the world), or as our minds are renewed by the Word of God. There is no third option.

Continue reading The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – Only Two Options →