Quotes from Jerry Bridges

have written it as a Bible study about God and His sovereignty, wisdom, and love as they bear upon the adversities we all encounter.

Only as we come to grips with the fact that we truly were objects of God's wrath do we begin to appreciate this good news of the gospel.

First, I desire to glorify God by acknowledging His sovereignty and His goodness. Second, I desire to encourage God's people by demonstrating from Scripture that God is in control of their lives, that He does indeed love them, and that He works out all the circumstances of their lives for their ultimate good.

In all of our thoughts, all of our actions, in every part of our character, the ruling principle that motivates and guides us should be the desire to follow Christ in doing the will of the Father.

If you read about the experiences of Christians who progressed in their relationship with the Lord Jesus beyond the norm, you will note the combination of a deep sense of sin and failure together with a deep appreciation for what God accomplished in Christ Jesus.

life is filled with such little events, little frustrations, little anxieties, and little disappointments that tempt us to fret, fume, and worry.

The gospel invitation is wide-open to all: "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13). "Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take of the free gift of the water of life" (Revelation 22:17). And yet when we come, we discover that we were chosen in Christ before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). That is grace.

God did not simply create and then walk away. He constantly sustains that which He created.

Christianity is not a do-it-yourself thing.

God had brought a "crooked" event into my life, and I became acutely aware that only He could straighten it. Could I trust God whether or not He

George Smeaton wrote, "[The apostle Paul] exhibits the two great counterparts of sin and righteousness as equal realities — the one as the world's ruin, the other as its restoration. The one is a completed fact as well as the

God had brought a "crooked" event into my life, and I became acutely aware that only He could straighten it. Could I trust God whether or not He straightened my "crook" and relieved my distress?

It is only the joy of hearing the gospel and being reminded that our sins are forgiven in Christ that will keep the demands of discipleship from becoming drudgery. It is only gratitude and love to God that comes from knowing that He no longer counts our sins against us (Romans 4:8) that provides the proper motive for responding to the claims of discipleship.

The so-called laws of nature are nothing more than the physical expression of the steady will of Christ.

God's providence is His constant care for and His absolute rule over all His creation for His own glory and the good of His people. Note the absolute terms: constant care, absolute rule, all creation.

Romans 7:21, and it distinguishes believers from unbelievers who lie serenely content in their darkness.

Could I trust Him even if I didn't understand?

In many ways, our sinful flesh acts as a mole. It is constantly responding to the allurements of the world and the enticements of the devil, and is constantly seeking to collaborate with them. And so we are very vulnerable spiritually. The

We've done nothing to earn His love and can do nothing to forfeit it. His love in Christ is eternal and unconditional. Nothing can separate us from His love, as the apostle Paul put it so eloquently. Do we really believe what Paul says to us here?

Yet, I acknowledge it often seems more difficult to trust God than to obey Him.

views our disobedience.

God's sovereignty does not negate our responsibility to pray, but rather makes it possible to pray with confidence.

In the person of Christ God beholds a holiness which abides His closest scrutiny, yea, which rejoices and satisfies His heart; and whatever Christ is before God, He is for His people."64

so the faith to trust God in adversity comes through the Word of God alone. It is only in the Scriptures that we find an adequate view of God's relationship to and involvement in our painful circumstances.