Do you Grieve or do you Justify? (3 of 17)

What it do ya!

My last two blog entries have been long… I’m gonna try to keep this one short, no promises though 🙂
Ponder on this:

“What a strange kind of salvation do they desire that care not for holiness… They would be saved by Christ and yet be out of Christ in a fleshly state… They would have their sins forgiven, not that they may walk with God in love, in time to come, but that they may practice their enmity against Him without any fear of punishment.”

This quest for holiness is serious business, a difficult journey to say the least…  Trig and I were discussing this very thing yesterday.  As a Puerto Rican pappi chulo, I have the ladies throwing themselves at me left and right… okay, well, not exactly… I’ve gained a few pounds since I last rocked them stages… blame the wifie’s cooking or lack of 😉 but, in all seriousness, as a man sexual purity can be an uphill battle.   Even in our most focused moments the females have this, I dunno, voo doo power (sorry ladies – I’m being facetious)… and we crumble!

I know, I know… for you theological buffs out there, God does not allow us to b tempted outside of what we can handle… nonetheless it is DIFFICULT!  …and that’s probably an understatement!

God calls us to be “holy and blameless in his sight” (Eph. 1:4).  Jerry Bridges makes a great observation, “To continue to live in sin as a Christian is to go contrary to God’s very purpose for our salvation.”

So even in the midst of those moments  where sins seems like the only way out, we have to ask ourselves, will this behavior be contrary to God’s very purpose in our salvation?

Here is the million dollar question (you know you’re not gonna get a million dollars, right?) …in your journey of faith, are you serious about holiness?  Do we GRIEVE over our sins, or are we simply JUSTIFYING them? …I believe that defines our pursuit for holiness.

Here is another great observation by Jerry Bridges, “If we know nothing of holiness, we may flatter ourselves that we are Christians but we do not have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.”

Hmmm…. that’s something to chew on…

“Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.” Hebrews 12:14

Grace & Peace

This blog entry are some of my thoughts from reading Chapter 3 of “The Pursuit of Holiness” by Jerry Bridges