One of the great legacies of Jerry Bridges is that he combined””to borrow some titles from his books””the pursuit of holiness and godliness with an emphasis on transforming grace. He believed that trusting God not only involved believing what he had done for us in the past, but that the gospel empowers daily faith and is transformative for all of life.
In 2009 he explained to interviewer Becky Grosenbach the need for this emphasis within the culture of the ministry he had given his life to:
When I came on staff almost all the leaders had come out of the military and we had pretty much a military culture. We were pretty hard core. We were duty driven. The WWII generation. We believed in hard work. We were motivated by saying “this is what you ought to do.” That’s okay, but it doesn’t serve you over the long haul. And so 30 years ago there was the beginning of a change to emphasize transforming grace, a grace-motivated discipleship.
GREAT author. Am very thankful for his faithful ministry and very practical books.
Funny. Just bought an e-book of his “Who Am I, Identity in Christ” (on sale today) at Amazon before I’d heard this news.
His book The Discipline of Grace was deeply helpful to me many years ago in teaching me the importance of “preaching the Gospel to myself” each day