Jerry Bridges: Law-Driven by Nature
“We are performance-oriented by nature, and our culture, and sometimes our upbringing, reinforces this legalistic mind-set. All too often a child’s acceptance by his or her parents is based on the child’s performance, and this certainly tends to be true in our society.
We carry this same type of thinking into our relationships with God. So whether it is our response to God’s discipline of us or our practice of those spiritual disciplines that are so good and helpful, we tend to think it is the ‘law’ of God rather than the grace of God that disciplines us.”
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Brother Mike, this is so timely. I have been meditating a lot on the ideas of "obedience" and "strength" lately. It's my personal theme for the year. And one thing that I keep ruminating through my mind is, "How do I obey, yet not do so in a legalistic manner, as if my performance impresses God?" I want to obey because I WANT to obey, and I want to trust in His strength to help me to that end. Timely post, brother.
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