This equating of obedience to God with love to God is a prominent feature of the book of Deuteronomy. Without trying to be exhaustive, I found six other passages in the book where love and obedience are tied together (Deuteronomy 10:12-13; 11:13; 11:22; 19:9; 30:6, 8; 30:19-20).
– Bridges, Jerry; The Disciplined of Grace:God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness; NavPress; Colorado Springs; copyright 1994; p. 114
As you read these verses (Deuteronomy 6:1-8), one thing that becomes clear is that the primary message is obedience to God. Notice how words such as commands, decrees, and laws are prominent (verses 1, 2, 6). Then note how obedience to these commands, decrees and laws is emphasized.
– Bridges, Jerry; The Disciplined of Grace:God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness; NavPress; Colorado Springs; copyright 1994; p. 113
I began to reflect on the question, What does it mean to love God? This is an important question. Afterall, Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). To love God with all my heart and soul and mind obviously means to love Him with all my being, with everything I have. And if I am to love God with this total wholeheartedness, then I need to know what it means to love God.
– Bridges, Jerry; The Disciplined of Grace:God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness; NavPress; Colorado Springs; copyright 1994; p. 112
To behold the glory of Christ in the gospel is a discipline. It is a habit we must develop by practice as we learn to preach the gospel to ourselves. As I have repeatedly said, although sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit, it is a work in which He involves us.
– Bridges, Jerry; The Disciplined of Grace:God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness; NavPress; Colorado Springs; copyright 1994; p. 109
Our specific responsibility in the pursuit of holiness as seen in II Corinthians 3:18, then, is to behold the glory of the Lord as it is displayed in the gospel. The gospel is the “mirror” through which we now behold His beauty. One day we shall see Christ, not as in a mirror, but face to face (I John 3:2). Until then we behold Him in the gospel. Therefore we must “preach the gospel to ourselves every day.”
– Bridges, Jerry; The Disciplined of Grace:God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness; NavPress; Colorado Springs; copyright 1994; p. 108-109
It is the gospel that exhibits God’s highest glory, which he chiefly designs to display before sinful men, even that glory of God that shineth in the face of Christ. It is the gospel that sets forth the glory of Christ, and by which the Holy Spirit himself is glorified; and it is it that will be honoured with the concomitant [accompanying] influence of the Holy Spirit…
If it should now be asked what is that special doctrine of the gospel, and, strictly speaking, the doctrine of faith? I shall answer briefly.
All revealed truth ought to be greatly valued, and received by faith and, if properly used, may be subservient to the main subject and design of the gospel. But the special subject of the gospel is Christ and preaching Christ, according to the light and direction of the word of God, is preaching the gospel…To preach Christ the SAVIOR and the LORD, is the sum of gospel-preaching.
– James Fraser
as quoted by Bridges, Jerry; The Disciplined of Grace:God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness; NavPress; Colorado Springs; copyright 1994; p.
What is the glory of the Lord that Paul (II Corinthians 3:18) referred to, and how does beholding it trusform us? First the glory of the Lord denotes the presence of God and all that He is in all of His attributes – His infiniteness, eternalness, holiness, sovereignty, goodness, etc. In other words, God is glorious in all of His being and all of His works.
– Bridges, Jerry; The Disciplined of Grace:God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness; NavPress; Colorado Springs; copyright 1994; p. 106
We will often be conscious of the Holy Spirit’s working in our lives and will even be able to discern what He is doing to some extent, especially in those instances where He elicits a conscious response from us. But, to again use the words of John Murray, “we must not suppose that the measure of our understanding or experience is the measure of the Spirit’s working.”
– Bridges, Jerry; The Disciplined of Grace:God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness; NavPress; Colorado Springs; copyright 1994; p. 105
We [believers] still have the presence of sin, nay the stirrings and workings of corruption. These make us to have many a sad heart and wet eye. Yet Christ has thus far freed us from sin; it shall not have dominion. There may be the turbulence, but not the prevalence of sin…[Sin] may get into the throne of the heart and play the tyrant in this or that particular act of sin, but it shall never more be as a king there.
– Samuel Bolten
as quoted by Bridges, Jerry; The Disciplined of Grace:God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness; NavPress; Colorado Springs; copyright 1994; p. 103
There must be a constant and increasing appreciation that though sin still remains it does not have the mastery. There is a total difference between suviving sin and reigning sin, the regerate in conflict with sin and the unregenerate complacent to sin. It is one thing for sin to live in us; it is another for us to live in sin.
– John Murray
as quote by Bridges, Jerry; The Disciplined of Grace:God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness; NavPress; Colorado Springs; copyright 1994; p. 102
Notable Quotables 