The Discipline of Grace

This week I have been reading a chapter out of this book, The Discipline of Grace by one of my favorite authors, Jerry Bridges. The reason I've been reading chapter six from this book is to prepare myself for a message that one of the pastors from our church is going to give on this chapter this upcoming Tuesday night. Jerry Bridges is not only one of my favorite Christian authors, but this book of his is one of my favorite books. It's an easy-read with hard lessons to learn. What I mean by that is that Mr. Bridges addresses some hard concepts that Christians today need to learn, but he presents them in a way that makes it easy to understand.
This particular chapter that I read was about Sanctification, Regeneration, and Justification...three "loaded" words that I hear all the time at my church. In order to fully grasp what Mr. Bridges wanted to teach me about these words in his book, I started taking notes on the different meanings of them. Here are a few notes from my journal:

SANCTIFICATION:
--begins at the time of our conversion
--ends at death
--it's a progressive change
--includes the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives to change us to be more and more like Christ...but it also includes our whole-hearted response in obedience (specifically the regular use of the spiritual disciplines)

JUSTIFICATION:
--an instantaneous act of God (it's completed at once)
--solely the work of God (unlike sanctification where we also have a part)
--it's when we are declared righteous before God and saved from the penalty of sin
--God never gives justification without sanctification

REGENERATION:
--also an instantaneous act of God
--also solely the work of God
--it's the "new birth" where we are made new creatures in Christ
--"born again" (John 3:3-8)
--the moment that we're justified, we are also regenerated (you cannot be one without the other)


Did learning about these three terms wet your appetite for more? If so, click on the book icon and you can order the book yourself. I guarantee it will be worth the time and money.