Equipping Eve: The Discipline of Grace (Part 2)

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Striving for eternity and the Bible thumping wingnut are happy to announce the judge not conference

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August 11 and 12 in Olmstead Falls, Ohio at Olmstead Falls Baptist Church Speakers include

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Phil Johnson, Mike Avendraw, Justin Peters, JD Hall and Chris Roseboro Also included is a debate at 7 p .m.

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On Friday on the topic of the charismatic gifts Continuationism versus cessationism you can register for the judge not conference at judge not conference dot o -r -g

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Don't miss this awesome opportunity and fellowship on the topic of apologetics and evangelism judge not conference

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Judge not conference dot o -r -g register today Is The church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus Well, it's true.

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There's no shortage of candy -coated Bible studies potluck fellowships available to ladies, but beyond Sunday morning our

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Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same Deceptions that even enticed

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Eve in the garden in an attempt to address the need for trustworthy Biblical resources for women

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No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce equipping Eve a ladies only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth

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In an age that's ripe with deception My name is Mike Avendraw and I'm pleased to introduce your host

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Aaron Benzinger a friend of No Compromise Radio And a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's Word Well, hello ladies and welcome to equipping

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Eve the show that seeks to equip you with fruits of truth from God's Word Why because you need

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God's Word you need God's truth because this world is nonsensical. It's crazy It is fallen and full of sin.

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But if you have the firm foundation of the Word of God, you're good to go You are good to go.

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It does not mean that your life will be a rose garden it does not mean that everything will be easy and Lovely for you to deal with it means

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That you know who you serve that you know that you are a citizen of another

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Kingdom and that's your time here on this earth is Short and that you are here for one purpose to glorify

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God and enjoy him forever How can you glorify God in your life wherever he has put you whether you are a mother a career woman

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Whatever you do. How do you glorify God in that? He has been good and gracious to you.

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Has he not and So you seek to serve him, right? Right. We seek to serve him

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If indeed we have been saved by him so today we're going to just jump right in and Continue with what we were talking about last time

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So if you didn't hear the last show, it might be helpful to go back and listen to it I don't typically try to do that.

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Just I'm not doing that just to get more listeners I'm doing that because I think it might be helpful. We'll recap very briefly here

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But go ahead Visit equippingaf .com .org and listen to the previous episode

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You can if you can't find it Shoot me a message on Facebook or Twitter and we'll get you linked up so that you can catch up So what we were talking about last time and I may have been a little disjointed in my message

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I hope not but it happens mostly because I had so many things I wanted to tell you and I'm not sure it was

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Organized in my notes in the best way. Also, it would have helped if I had actually followed my notes and I didn't

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So my apologies, but hopefully you got the point we were talking about grace Right and we're talking about this balance that is so necessary between grace and law and preaching

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Sanctification and discipline and also preaching grace now I understand this this fear in the

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Christian community that if we preach grace people are going to go out and be like, oh I can go sinning I can go do whatever

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I want. I'm gonna go have an affair and I'm gonna go out drinking Well, that's nonsense because if anybody has been truly saved by God They won't desire to do those things because they know they are sinful they know that they are sinning not against The law but sinning against the

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Lord, right? It's more than sinning against the Ten Commandments It's sinning against the

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God of the universe and a true Christian knows that and so to preach The truth of grace to a true

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Christian is not to tell them to go out and sin they will not desire that instead they will desire holiness even more because they will be reminded of this great gospel by which they have been saved and So we talked a little bit about the

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Abrahamic Covenant as a great example of grace Because here God made this covenant with Abraham.

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It was wholly dependent on God Abraham had to do Nothing in order for God to keep his part of the covenant

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There was no way that covenant could be broken which is why the Abrahamic Covenant will be fulfilled

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In full in total everything that God has ever promised to Israel will happen

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That's another show. But anyway, think on that that will happen and that is very important for us as Believers because that means that our

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God is a covenant keeping God Right, that's what that means

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That means when God says that your sins have been forgiven in Christ Jesus for those who have been brought to repentance and faith and that means that our sins have been forgiven in Christ Jesus and there

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Is nothing we can do to nullify that promise the disobedience of man cannot nullify the promises of God Will it delay his blessing possibly?

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Yeah, it probably will I mean, you know from your own life, don't you if you've made a sinful choice?

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You can see how that Delayed God's blessing in your life It's not that he wasn't still providing for you and watching over you and caring for you and loving for you

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But you can see it how things worked out and you think oh if I hadn't made that choice that Ended up being sinful or I knew was sinful, but I made it anyway

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This wouldn't have happened this blessing this outcome perhaps would have happened sooner

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But then we go to another wonderful doctrine of God don't we his sovereignty and He is sovereign over those circumstances even and so he is sovereign over the fact that you made one choice over another

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And he ordained all of that before the foundation of the world. And so that is what is so mind -blowingly

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Wonderful about God. We cannot comprehend that the doctrine of sovereign sovereignty brings us great comfort and So does this doctrine of grace his mercy this gospel of grace

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Let's call it that this gospel of grace that says that our disobedience can never

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Negate his promises to us And so what does this mean for us as Christians we were talking about two spectrums of Preaching that you might hear one is just all grace, you know, and there's no call to holiness

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There's no call to righteousness. It's just hey you add Jesus to a life of sin You just walk the aisle pray the prayer sign the card.

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You're good to go. You can do whatever you want You got Jesus you're going to heaven. You're fine. So we got that end of the spectrum.

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That's awful. That's not the true gospel That is creating false converts all over the place.

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That's very much seeker driven. No, it's wrong But then you have the other end of the spectrum and I fear that there are actually true

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Christians preaching this Well, let me back up the other end of the spectrum would straight -up say you need to do these things to get saved here's your list and You need to be holy as your father in heaven is holy.

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And if you aren't Maybe you got saved but you'll lose your salvation You're going to have to repent and do better next time to earn it back.

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That's the other end of the spectrum, right? Okay, a true Christian is not preaching that either but there's there's things like that there's the middle of the spectrum which we'll get to and then there's that kind of between the middle and that Legalistic and that were that we just talked about and it is a preaching that affirms the gospel of grace

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But the preaching comes through that if you aren't doing things a certain way and you aren't feeling a certain way about things

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Probably aren't saved and it's a preaching that is so heavy on sanctification

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That it renders the listener who very likely may be a true

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Christian it renders him or her Impotent to be useful in the kingdom

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Because they are dwelling so much on the fact that they are not sanctified that they aren't doing this well enough that they aren't

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Measuring up that they are useless They lose their desire to evangelize they lose their desire to do the ministry work that God has given them whatever that may be

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Because they're told over and over again that they don't measure up They might not be being told that they need to do something to get saved

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But they're constantly being told that if you aren't feeling a certain way, you aren't doing a certain thing

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You might not be saved Now we are to examine ourselves ladies that's in the scriptures

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We are to examine ourselves. We are to grieve over our sin. We are to desire and strive for holiness

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But what is so often neglected in this type of preaching is that we don't strive for holiness on our own

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Do we we can't? We need the enabling power of the Holy Spirit and we have that at our disposal if we have been saved

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Todd Friel Tweeted out a really good quote a while back He said quote if you would like your child to constantly feel miserable about their sins only preach sanctification yeah, and You should feel miserable about your sin but You also need to remember the gospel of grace

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The gospel of grace that you have been forgiven of your sins Purchased with the blood of Christ the gospel of grace that says when you have been saved

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You're given the the indwelling Holy Spirit who enables you To live a life that is pleasing to God and We quoted from a booklet by Jerry Bridges last time and we'll start with that again

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Booklets called since we accept he says as we struggle to put to death our subtle sins We must always keep in mind this twofold truth

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Our sins are forgiven and we are accepted as righteous by God because of the sinless life and sin -bearing death of our

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Lord Jesus Christ There is no greater motivation for dealing with sin in our lives than the realization of these two glorious truths of the gospel

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We must also learn to rely on the enabling power of the Holy Spirit Remember it is by the

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Spirit that we put to death the sins in our lives And in fact he goes to Romans 8 13, so let's turn there very quickly

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He says Romans 8 13 Paul writes for if you are living according to the flesh you must die

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But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body you will live Bridges goes on he says regardless of how much we grow

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We never get beyond our constant need of the enabling power of the Holy Spirit It's not like you get to a point you say, okay,

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Holy Spirit. I'm good. I got this I'll finish my sanctification from here and he goes on he says well depending on the

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Holy Spirit We must at the same time recognize our responsibility to diligently pursue all Practical steps for dealing with our sins.

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So this is saying you don't just sit back and let go let God, right? We pursue practical steps for dealing with our sins.

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Hey watching that on TV makes me sin. Well, I'm not gonna watch it Hey going to that place

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You know causes me to sin. Well, I'm not gonna go there, right? I mean that's common sense and that's the desire that is put into us when we are saved and we are involved with the

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Holy Spirit And Bridges goes on says we do have a vital part to play We are responsible to put to death the acceptable sins in our lives and he's really focused here on acceptable sins

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You know gossip and and a self -righteousness Things like that. We cannot simply lay this responsibility on God and sit back and watch him work at the same time

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We are dependent. We cannot make one inch of spiritual progress apart from his enabling how his enabling power

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But the Holy Spirit does more than help us. He is the one actually directing our spiritual transformation

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Remember he ends his book remember Christ has already paid the penalty for our sins and one for us the forgiveness of them and Then he has sent his

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Holy Spirit to live within us to enable us to deal with them That's huge.

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Isn't it? We and we so easily forget that and when we're constantly being told do this feel this do that Don't do that.

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Don't feel this but feel that We forget that we forget that we are not doing this on our own.

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We can't You know, we look we want to be like Christ a whole we just want the sin gone in our lives

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But God I can't do it. And as I heard a pastor say recently, yes, you can't And I loved how he put that you're right

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You can't You can't do it. You're not expected to if God calls us to holiness

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Then he he Enables and equips us for that and he does that by the power of his

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Holy Spirit, right? And so we cannot forget the gospel.

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We cannot forget God's grace We cannot forget that his promises to us are not nullified because we sin

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And as I said last time I've seen I've been in different types of churches.

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I've seen different things I've heard stories from other people I've seen All ends of the spectrum

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I've seen the seeker driven. It doesn't matter what you do. Just you're saved. You're fine You're good to go.

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I've seen the other end of the spectrum I've heard from people who have been in legalistic churches, and then

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I have seen this other weird thing that's in the middle that I fear so many people tend toward because we're so afraid that we're gonna come across as Preaching a gospel of easy believism.

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We're so afraid of that We end up preaching to believers that they're just hopeless and They're just not measuring up and when that happens a spiritual depression a spiritual funk sets in and Satan loves it

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So we're so afraid of preaching easy believism that we preach sanctification

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Constantly but we forget to mention That it's the Holy Spirit that enables us.

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We forget to remind people that yes, you will mess up We know that your heart if you've been saved your heart is inclined toward holiness your heart desires to honor and serve and follow

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Christ We also know You can't do it on your own and we know you're going to mess up and you're going to stumble

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But Christ died to forgive that sin

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Doesn't mean you sin and go. Oh doesn't matter. No you grieve over your sin, but you also rejoice

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That you have been forgiven if all we do is preach a striving for holiness without basing that on the

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Essential foundation of the gospel of grace that is found in Jesus Christ alone if we preach sanctification without Christ We have forgotten the gospel and we are twisting the scriptures and we are preaching something false that is very dangerous, there's a

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Remarkable book that I alluded to several episodes ago I think and I said we'd come back to it and basically

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I'm just going to read you some quotes from this book because it's Fantastic. I'll try not to read the whole thing because that's not fair.

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We should I Encourage you to go out and get this book It's called the discipline of grace

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God's role and our role in the pursuit of holiness And it's by Jerry Bridges, and I think you will find it to be extremely

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Encouraging ladies if you do go out and get this book so a few episodes ago

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I read to you from the preface and I'm going to read that to you again Just pieces of it so that you understand the background of this book

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So Jerry Bridges wrote and real fast and just to Recap for those who may not know

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Jerry Bridges passed away in 2016, but he was an author author and teacher and he's written many books and this was actually the first of his books that I read and So I'm anxious to read some of the others, but this might still be my favorite

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Regardless of what I read so there's that so he wrote in his preface to the discipline of grace

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Shortly after my book the pursuit of holiness was published in 1978 I was invited to give a series of ten lectures on that subject at a church in our city

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One night I titled my lecture the chapter I wish I had written the nature of that message was that the pursuit of holiness must be motivated by an ever -increasing

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Understanding of the grace of God else it can become oppressive and joyless And this is what

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I want us to see ladies He goes on he says the study and reflection that went into that lecture started me down the path of further study on the grace of God culminating in a later book

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Transforming grace as I sought to relate the biblical principle of living by grace to the equally biblical principle of personal discipline

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I realized it would be helpful to bring these two truths together in one book and that is the purpose of this volume

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So that's kind of the background for this book and as I said, you just need to read this book, it's fantastic there's so much truth in here and I suspect that many people will read this and and see some of what they've experienced in their own lives and I go back to what he said that if we don't root our pursuit of holiness and in a motivation by an ever -increasing understanding of the grace of God Our pursuit of holiness becomes oppressive and joyless and it becomes a type of legalism.

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It truly does It's not do this to get saved But if you're not doing this you might not be saved and that is it is a legalistic feel and it brings with it that same oppression and joylessness and it's very dangerous to our spiritual growth ladies, so I'm going to walk through and give you some

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Marvelous nuggets of truth from this book and we'll talk about them along the way so here he says

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He gives this comparison of this good day bad day and have you ever done that like I had a really good day spiritually

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I read my Bible and you know I didn't get angry today and I didn't yell at anybody while I was driving to work.

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That one's for me And then you the next day you have a bad day You know, I didn't I didn't get to read my

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Bible or I read it, but I wasn't really paying attention I was just reading it to read it and then I got angry with My child or my spouse and it was just a bad day

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You know, God's probably just really disappointed in me today and he was probably really really happy with me yesterday and and so he he kind of goes and Uses that comparison that we tend to do to ourselves

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But the reality is we're sinners every day, right? We're sinners every day and God is gracious and merciful to us every day.

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His mercies are new every morning. Are they not? And so Bridget says regardless of our performance we are always dependent on God's grace whether you're having a good day or a bad day

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You are still dependent on God's grace. He says His undeserved favor to those who deserve his wrath some days

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We may be more acutely conscious of our sinfulness and hence more aware of our need of his grace But there is never a day when we can stand before him on our own two feet

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When we are worthy enough to deserve his blessing Amen, right

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Every day of our Christian experience should be a day of relating to God on the basis of his grace alone

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We are not only saved by grace, but we live by grace every day and that is key ladies

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And I think it's something that's not taught enough. We are it's not just that we get saved by grace and then okay, we're good

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We don't need grace anymore. No, no, we live by grace every day It's so true, isn't it?

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And I hadn't really thought about it that way until I saw it in print and I thought it was a little light bulb I went oh my goodness.

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Yes And he says this grace comes through Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand

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Romans 5 to a Significant part of the Mosaic law and quoting bridges here was the promise of blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience

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Some Christians live as if that principle applies to them today Here we go

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But Paul said that the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith

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Christ has already borne the curses for our disobedience and earned for us the blessings of obedience so this goes back to saying right that the law is not necessarily the foundational covenant of the

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Old Testament Christ has already borne the curses for our disobedience and earned the blessings of obedience as a result

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We are now to look to Christ alone not Christ plus our performance for God's blessings in our lives

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We are saved by grace and we are to live by grace alone when we pray to God for his blessing

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He does not examine our performance to see if we are worthy Rather he looks to see if we are trusting in the merit of his son as our only hope for securing his blessing to repeat

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We are saved by grace. We are to live by grace Every day of our Christian lives and so that's really important that we talked about how our disobedience might delay

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God's blessing But it does not Nullify nullify the promise of that blessing.

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Do you see that? because Even God's blessing is not based on our performance

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It is based on what Christ has done is based on Christ and his life

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Because the promises of God cannot be nullified by the disobedience of man

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It's so important ladies. I want you to see it. I hope you're seeing it So then he has a little bit later in this early chapter

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He talks about self -righteousness and guilt and this was something that just really hit home for me and some of what

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I've seen and experienced In bridges rights. We must remember that the gospel is for sinners Jesus said

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I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance And the gospel is meaningful for us only to the extent that we realize and acknowledge that we are still sinful

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Although we are new creations in Christ. We still sin every day and thought word and deed and perhaps even more important in motives to benefit from the gospel every day, then we must acknowledge that we are still sinners and Listen closely to this ladies without a continual reminder of the good news of the gospel

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We can easily fall into one of two errors The first is to focus on our external performance and become proud like the

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Pharisees We may then begin to look down our spiritual noses at others who are not as disciplined Obedient and committed as we are and in a very subtle way begin to feel spiritually superior to them

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The second error is the exact opposite of the first it is the feeling of guilt We've been exposed to the disciplines of the

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Christian life to obedience and to service and in our hearts We have responded to those challenges We haven't however

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Been as successful as others around us appear to be or we find ourselves Dealing with some of the sins of the heart such as anger resentment covetousness and a judgmental attitude

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Perhaps we struggle with impure thoughts or impatience or a lack of faith and trust in God Because we have put the gospel on the shelf as far as our own lives are concerned

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We struggle with a sense of failure and guilt We believe God is displeased with us and we certainly wouldn't expect his blessing on our lives after all we don't deserve his favor

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So do you see those two those two errors spiritual pride is the result of one and this

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Disabling guilt is the result of the other the thing is that and this isn't something that bridges really talked about but those two can be enmeshed and You can be experiencing both at the same time and it's a very weird combination where you feel spiritually prideful because you know so much and you are the elite and Yet you are also completely

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Disabled by a sense of guilt because you just aren't measuring up to errors

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Leading to a Christian who is useless Satan loves it and here's the point on both ends of that spectrum whether they're

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Enmeshed together or you're just stuck in one of those errors. You're focusing on your performance

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And Bridget says because we're focusing on our performance. We forget the meaning of grace

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Pharisee type believers unconsciously think they have earned God's blessing through their behavior. It's unconscious, too. I like that.

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He points that out like you're not Purposely thinking this way then he says guilt -laden believers are quite sure they have forfeited

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God's blessing through their lack of discipline or their disobedience Both have forgotten the meaning of grace because they have moved away from the gospel and have slipped into a performance

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Relationship with God and that is key even as Christians who are Saved who know the gospel we can slip into a performance relationship mindset with God And so has that happened to you ladies has that ever happened to you

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I'll be very frank and transparent that has happened to me That enmeshed version that I spoke to you about I can speak about it from experience

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And it's a dangerous place to be and it's a scary place to be because you don't understand You don't get what's happening

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Until God is good to open your eyes and save you out of it.

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It's like a Different type of salvation. It's not salvation unto eternal life, but it's salvation from some serious

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Spiritual error and it goes back to the gospel.

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We tend to put the gospel on the shelf We know it we acknowledge it we get pay lip service to it

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But we are not letting it inform our lives our Christian lives

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Which is our entire life, right? We've put it on the shelf as Bridges says

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But later in his book, he says Jesus himself is always to be the object of our faith We sometimes say we're saved by faith alone meaning apart from any works

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But that expression can be misleading as though faith itself has some virtue that God respects. Remember ladies

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This is me talking faith is a gift from God, right? Oh, well, I got ahead of Bridges here because he says that later

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It is more accurate to say we are saved by God's grace through faith faith is merely the hand that receives The gift of God and God through his spirit even opens our hand to receive the gift

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This doctrine of trusting in Jesus Christ alone for one salvation is a basic truth of the gospel without acceptance of it

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There is no salvation all believers by definition except that fact But it is important to realize that we're not only saved by faith at a particular point in time but we are to live by faith in Christ every day of our lives and Again going back to what we talked about before where we live by grace

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We live by faith and we live by grace God's grace. We don't we're just saved by grace.

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We live by grace We must keep in mind that our justification by God is based solely on the meritorious work of Christ and our union with him

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That is God sees us legally is so connected with Christ that what he did We did when he lived a life of perfect obedience

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It is as if we had lived a life of perfect obedience when he died on the cross to satisfy the just demands of God's Laws as if we had died on that cross

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Christ stood in our place as our representative both in his sinless life and his sin -bearing death

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This is what Paul referred to in Galatians 2 20 when he said I have been crucified with Christ And think about it we even see that in Ephesians 2 don't we

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We see this union with Christ Ephesians 2 verse 1 and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world

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According to the prince of the power of the air of the spirit that is now working and the sons of disobedience Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh

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Indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest

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But God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and Raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus So that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus That is this union with Christ if we lose sight of it we become spiritually disabled and we lose sight of it when we take on a self -righteous attitude a spiritually prideful attitude and when we take on this this guilt -laden attitude or viewpoint or perception of life

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Justification says Burgess is a completed work as far as God is concerned the penalty has been paid and his justice has been satisfied

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But it must be received through faith and continually renewed in our souls and applied to our consciences every day through faith

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Justification is said to be given to us freely by his grace the word freely signifies without payment of any kind Justification cannot be purchased by the payment of good works.

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There is no exchange of value between the sinner and God Justification is free every

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Consequence of the cross is given freely to sinners And God grants repentance and faith and those who believe in him

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Shall have eternal life moving on through Bridges books and a book and I hope this just gives you a little flavor of what's in here and what you might

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Read if you would decide to get this book and as I said, I think you'll be really encouraged and this is not a commercial

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I'm not trying to do a commercial for the book I'm just trying to share some encouraging teaching that I have learned lately and it just was a very

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Very much a renewal for my faith and spiritual life and spiritual growth And so I'm just very thankful for it and that's why

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I'm sharing it with you So he goes on he says we've seen that the gospel is the good news that Christ died in our place to pay the penalty

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For our sins where we declared not guilty in the court of heaven But there's still more good news the death of Christ secured for us

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Not only freedom from the penalty of sin, but deliverance from the dominion of sin in our lives Well, that's really key, isn't it?

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and that's where this idea of sanctification comes in and how we Rely on the enabling power of the

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Holy Spirit And yes, we must seek out those practical ways to mortify the sin in our lives but we are enabled by the power of the

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Holy Spirit and Then he goes on and he talks about this idea of discipline the discipline of grace which is the title of his book and he talks first a little bit about how when he was

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Earlier in his Christian life. He was he was introduced to this idea of Christian disciplines, you know, read your

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Bible journal pray whatever And all good things not all necessary things if you are a

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Christian You don't have to journal that's kind of one that sticks in my craw. But anyway But he says that while he learned those disciplines

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He came to believe that his day -to -day relationship with God depended on how faithfully I performed them

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Right and it's not that he was being told that and it's not that he was consciously thinking that way But that's kind of what we tend to do, right?

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He says we're performance oriented by nature and our culture and sometimes our upbringing reinforces this legalistic mindset

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All too often a child's acceptance by his or her parents is based on the child's performance and this tends to be true in our

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Society we carry the same type of thinking into our relationship with God So whether it is our response to God's discipline of us or our practice of those spiritual disciplines

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That might be good and helpful We tend to think it is the quote -unquote law of God rather than the grace of God that disciplines us

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Paul said that it is the very same grace God's unmerited favor that brought salvation to us in the first place that Disciplines us and this is key

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This means all our responses to God's dealings with us and all our practice of the spiritual disciplines must be based on the knowledge that God is dealing with us in grace and it means that all our effort to teach godly living

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And spiritual maturity to others must be grounded in grace If we fail to teach that discipline is by grace people will assume that it is by performance

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But the grace that brings salvation to us also disciplines us It does not do the one without the other that is

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God never saves people and leaves them alone to continue in their immaturity and sinful lifestyle That's so encouraging, isn't it?

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It's so encouraging. It's like he saves you and says, okay. Good luck. No, no, no No, those whom he saves he disciplines in Philippians 1 6

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Paul said it this way He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus This thought is both encouraging and sobering it is

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Encouraging because it assures us that our spiritual growth is not left to our own initiative Nor is it dependent upon our wisdom to know in which areas and in which direction we need to grow rather It is

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God himself who initiates and super intends our spiritual growth This is not to say that we have no responsibility to respond to God's spiritual trial training in our lives

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But it is to say that he is the one in charge of our training At the same time the inseparability of God's grace and spiritual discipline is a sobering truth

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And remember we're using this term discipline spiritual discipline as God's spiritual discipline not These this list of things you need to do every day

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One has only to look around at Christendom particularly in the US to see that there's a vast multitude of people who claim to have trusted in Christ at some time, but don't have

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But do not seem to have experienced any of the discipline of grace They may have walked an aisle signed a card or even prayed a prayer

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But grace is not teaching them to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions let alone to live self -controlled upright and godly lives

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Essentially their lives are no different today than they were before they professed to have trusted Christ Being a

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Christian means something it looks like something It means you have a transformed life

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Therefore if anyone is in Christ 2nd Corinthians 5 17 He is a new creature the old things passed away behold new things have come being a

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Christian looks like something and that's an important truth to realize that The discipline of God's grace will result in a transformed life at the same time.

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We're encouraged Because our spiritual growth is not up to us. We don't have to pull ourselves up by our own spiritual bootstraps and We all know that picture of putting off and putting on that we find in Scripture and Bridges Talks about that and says that he likes to think of this as represented by the two blades of a pair of scissors

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We readily recognize that a single scissors blade is useless as far as doing the job for which it was designed

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The two blades must be joined together at the pivot point and must work in conjunction with each other to be effective

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The scissors illustrate a spiritual principle We must work simultaneously at putting off the characteristics of our old selves and putting on the characteristics of the new selves

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One without the other is not effective. But again, we are enabled by the power of the

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Holy Spirit We are Disciplined by God's grace because he is a father who loves us

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And so he grows us and conforms us to the the image of his son We are not conformed by the law we are conformed by grace

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And so that's the last thing I want to look at here in Bridges book He says how then are you being disciplined?

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Is it by law or is it by grace? Of course God is disciplining by his grace.

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But how do you perceive it? How are you seeking to respond to his parental training? Do you accept the forgiveness of his grace or do you labor under the burden of guilt?

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Are you relying on your union with Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit for the power to respond to God's training?

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Or is the Bible only a rule book of commands you are struggling to obey by your own willpower

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Remember the grace that brought salvation to you is the same grace that teaches you But you must respond on the basis of grace not law and that is why you must preach the gospel to yourself every day

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And that is key, isn't it? We preach the gospel to ourselves every day We remember the gospel of grace because that gospel reminds us that we are sinners who cannot

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Save ourselves, but that Jesus Christ saved us that we are Granted saved by grace through faith.

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We are granted unmerited favor on the basis of Christ's Perfect life is atoning death and that our sins are forgiven

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So that when we fall and when we stumble We grieve our sin, but we move forward in Christ Thankful for the grace that has been shown to us

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Well, I hope this has been encouraging to you ladies. I hope you can take away some of this and Ponder it and praise

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God for the great grace that he has extended toward you ladies, it is a sobering and encouraging thing that is the beauty of scripture and that is the beauty of God's saving grace and Ultimately, we are encouraged even when we are convicted of sin

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Even when it hurts we are encouraged because it means that God our good and perfect father

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Is disciplining us by his grace is Growing us to look like his son

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Even when we are convicted we are comforted Right, aren't we? We serve a good and wonderful God We serve a merciful and gracious Savior Let us desire to live lives that honor him

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Until next time ladies get in your Bibles and get on your knees and get equipped.

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Thanks for listening You've been listening to equipping Eve a no -compromise radio production

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If you'd like to get a hold of Erin, you can reach her at equipping Eve at gmail .com

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Or you can check out one of her two websites. Do not be surprised calm or Equipping Eve org.