I’m still plowing through the book Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges. Here are some more excerpts that have really stuck out to me…
“The currency of our morality and good deeds is worthless in God’s sight.
Furthermore, we all are so heavily in debt to Him because of our sin that there is no question of our even partially paying our way with God.”
“Grace is not a matter of God’s making up the difference, but God’s providing all the cost of salvation through his Son, Jesus Christ.”
“This is the very essence of sin, the very core of it—going our own way. Your way may be to give money to charity, while another person’s may be to rob a bank. But neither act is done with reverence to God; both of you have gone your own way. And in a world governed by a sovereign Creator, that is rebellion, that is sin.”
“We were born with a perverse inclination to go our own way, to set up our own internal government rather than submit to God.”
“God’s grace cuts both ways: it can neither be earned by your merit nor forfeited by your demerit. If you sometimes feel you deserve an answer to prayer or a particular blessing from God because of your hard work or sacrifice, you are living by works, not grace. But it is just as true that if you sometimes despair of experiencing God’s blessing because of your demerits—the ‘oughts’ you should have done but didn’t, or the don’ts you shouldn’t have done but did—you are also casting aside the grace of God.”
“He does not deal with us as our sins deserve, which would be punishment, but as His grace provides, which is for good.”
“We’ve blown it and fallen on our spiritual faces too many times. Just like Peter, we need to be convinced in our hearts that God is the God of all grace, that He is going to bless us and use us, not according to our deserts, but according to his infinite goodness and sovereign purpose.”
After our third game was over and I was feeling pretty tired and horrible about getting beaten twice, I was starting to go through my usual self pity routine. I hadn’t pitched very well in that game and was not handling it too well. I’m very performance oriented, and when I don’t perform up to the standards that I’ve set for myself then I feel almost worthless. Especially after games like the one on Saturday I’ll feel like I’m not good at anything, and begin to doubt my ability to perform at anything at all. While I was reading this book a description of the apostle Peter falling on his face repeatedly but still used by God for great things really stuck out to me. It became apparent to me that I’m not living by God’s grace when I think of myself as a failure due to my performance on the field. I’m supposed to be playing for an audience of one, God, and if I don’t locate my fastball during a baseball game that doesn’t mean that I can’t be used by Him for great things. I know this sounds like a very elementary concept, but it is one that I’m having to slowly grasp and apply to my own life.
1 comment:
Steve, I just finished a Jerry Bridges book (The Gospel for Real Life). I love him, everything he says is pretty much gold. I'll pray for you to find yourself in Christ and at the cross, so that you can learn to be content always like Paul. I know those feelings too, not in Baseball anymore, but in the rest of life. Today, I listened to a Piper sermon on Judson, the missionary to Burma. It is a hard sermon to listen to, but an encouraging one even if the circumstances are totally different.
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