The Discipline of Grace

I’ve been struck recently by how it seems that many Christians go to one side or the other when it comes to growing and becoming more like Christ, after salvation. Some believe we just need to pray and it shouldn’t require any effort. Others believe we should make effort but then get very guilty and discouraged when they sin.

However the Bible talks about both effort and dependence on God, and grace when we sin.

Seeing the confusion on this topic is why I immediately ordered ‘The Discipline of Grace’ by Jerry Bridges as soon as I saw it. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t off track anywhere and find out how to talk to others about it!

It starts with the challenge to ‘look to Christ alone – not Christ plus our performance – for God’s blessings in our lives.’ Do we try and earn God’s favour through our performance? We shouldn’t, because if we are saved we already have it, through Jesus dying to atone for our sin.

Then it moves on to exhort us to preach the gospel to ourselves every day – we need to understand God’s grace for us when we sin so that we don’t get discouraged!

It goes on to explain why we should want to pursue holiness as Christians. He says, ‘my observation is that most of us who are believers practice what I call a “cruise-control” approach to obedience… the level of obedience is most often determined by the behaviour standard of other Christians around us’. Instead he says we should have “race-car obedience” where we drive with all our heart, soul and mind. I love that analogy!

The last half of the book is devoted to the personal disciplines that we need to practice in the pursuit of holiness, while stressing the need for dependence on God. There is great practical advice in those chapters.

I have found the book extremely helpful and challenging. I have underlined something on almost every page, because there are so many really good things that he says, and there is so much misunderstanding of these truths among Christians!

I think it would be good for any Christian to read but especially those who are struggling with feeling like they need to earn favour with God, or with not feeling the need to put effort in, or who could do with some advice on how to pursue holiness in a way that is dependent on God.

The only caution I would give is that it is very deep! It is not an easy read, and takes some thinking about, but I believe it is well worth it 🙂