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Missing Chapter from The Pursuit of Holiness

This past week I spent some time with Bob Bevington, coauthor with Jerry Bridges of The Bookends of the Christian Life. It was intriguing to learn from Bob that the First Bookend is essentially the chapter Bridges wishes he had included in The Pursuit of Holiness. First published by NavPress in 1979, The Pursuit of Holiness has sold well over a million copies and has influenced many pastors and growing Christians over the past 30 years.

If you’ve never read The Pursuit of Holiness, or it has been 20 years, you should pick it up. But you might also consider reading this new book alongside it, as Bridges and Bevington support the pursuit of holiness with the two bookends of the Christian life: the righteousness of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

View inside The Bookends:

April 24, 2009 | Posted in: Books,Pursuit of Holiness,Sanctification/Growth | Author: James Kinnard @ 7:58 am | 0 Comments »

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Tim Keller on the Power of Resurrection

By Nancy Guthrie

It’s just the way I am. And I’m too old to change. That’s the way many of us feel about ourselves. We fear we are trapped in the patterns of our personality, with no hope to ever change.

In the piece by Tim Keller in the collection of writing about the cross and resurrection, Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross, Tim Keller speaks to this hopeless surrender to our sin-sick ways, drawing back the curtain on why the resurrection of Jesus is such good news for those of us who fear we can never change.

“The difference between knowing Christ and knowing the power of his resurrection,” says Keller, “is the difference between knowing a person and resembling a person . . . It is not about relationship but about supernatural character growth.

When Paul says, “I want to know him,” it means, “I want to be with him,” but when he says, “I want to know the power of his resurrection,” it means, “I want to be just like him.”

Look at the deadness in your life. Look at the anger. How is that going to be turned into forgiveness? Look at the insecurity. How is that going to be turned into confidence? Look at the self-centeredness. How is that going to be turned into compassion and generosity? How? The answer is that the dead stuff gets taken over by the Spirit of God . . . The minute you decide to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord, the power of the Holy Spirit comes into your life. It’s the power of the resurrection—the same thing that raised Jesus from the dead.”

~~~

NANCY GUTHRIE has a passion for sharing God’s Word through her growing national and international Bible-teaching ministry. She has worked in the Christian publishing industry for more than two decades and is the author of Holding On to Hope, The One-Year Book of Hope, Hoping for Something Better, and Crossway’s Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus.

April 8, 2009 | Posted in: Author,Resurrection of Christ,Sanctification/Growth | Author: Crossway Staff @ 10:01 am | 0 Comments »

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“Because He Loves Me” Free on the Kindle

becauseElyse Fitzpatrick’s Because He Loves Me: How Christ Transforms Our Daily Life (April 2008) is available for free for 30 days in the Kindle Store.

(Note: We were hoping to have this up on other platforms as well but are experiencing some delays.)

Elyse’s latest book, Comforts from the Cross: Celebrating the Gospel One Day at a Time, was published last month and her next, written with Dennis Johnson, will be published in June. It is titled Counsel from the Cross: Connecting Broken People to the Love of Christ.

Endorsements for Because He Loves Me

“Elyse Fitzpatrick has given us a helpful, encouraging, and stimulating book that explores the practical impact of God’s great love for his people in every aspect of Christian living. Her rich insights into God’s revealed truth will certainly equip and inspire Christians to better fulfill their chief end of glorifying and enjoying him forever!”
Carol J. Ruvolo, author of Grace to Stand Firm, Grace to Grow, and No Other Gospel

“The Spirit of God seems to be initiating a widespread recovery of the gospel and its implications. Because He Loves Me is another—and welcome—indication that fresh gospel breezes are blowing. If you love the gospel of Jesus Christ, you’ll love what Elyse Fitzpatrick has written in this book.”
Donald S. Whitney, Professor of Biblical Spirituality, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; author of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life

“What Elyse Fitzpatrick has written is inspirational and overflows with practical application that pushes me to take the gospel into the otherwise private corners of my life.”
Edward T. Welch, Counselor and Faculty Member, Christian Counseling & Education Foundation

“Because He Loves Me will provide hope and a desperately needed supply of ‘spiritual oxygen’ to many Christians who have lost sight of what they have and who they are in Christ and are struggling to live a life they can never live apart from him.”
Nancy Leigh DeMoss, author; Radio Host, Revive Our Hearts

“Many Christian books focus our gaze on the difficult duties of the Christian life, leaving us either triumphant in self-righteous pride or burdened down with a backpack full of guilt. Elyse Fitzpatrick shows us how to lay down that burden of guilt at the cross and put to death that self-righteousness, not merely once but daily as we glory increasingly in the gospel.”
Iain Duguid, Professor of Old Testament, Grove City College

“Elyse Fitzpatrick reminds us why the gospel is such good news—not only when we hear it for the first time, but even after a lifetime of familiarity with the message. This is a moving exposition of gospel truth showing how the doctrinal content of our faith is not merely dry, academic stuff, but wonderfully personal and practical truth.”
Philip R. Johnson, Executive Director, Grace to You

April 3, 2009 | Posted in: Author,Books,Endorsements,Sanctification/Growth | Author: James Kinnard @ 7:43 am | (3) Comments »

Posted in Author, Books, Endorsements, Sanctification/Growth | 3 Comments »

The Bookends of the Christian Life

9781433503191Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington’s new book is now available. In The Bookends of the Christian Life, Bridges and Bevington provide an extended metaphor to explain two provisions on which believers must rely—the righteousness of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Aimed at helping readers comprehend the doctrines of justification and sanctification—The Bookends is for all who recognize the utter insufficiency of their own righteousness and are desperate for help in living the Christian life.

Visit www.TheBookendsBook.com for more information and access to a free study guide.

Endorsements

“Forgiveness of  sin  and power  to  change—I  can  think of no more essential topics for a Christian to study than these twin blessings of the gospel. And I can think of no one better to write on these topics than Jerry Bridges. Jerry has provided for me over the years a constant diet of gospel-saturated writing, and here is a fresh feast. I trust you will enjoy it as much as I have” - C.J. Mahaney

“Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington look at the Christian life through a wide-angle lens, examining the framework that supports, stabilizes and secures the believer’s life in Christ. They teach elements of a distinctly biblical worldview, leaning upon the righteousness of Christ on one hand and upon the power of the Holy Spirit on the other. A wise and powerful book, one I heartily recommend.” - Tim Challies

“Thinking you understand  the gospel but applying  it only  to salvation is like barely releasing your sail and slogging through the waves. Bookends will equip you to release that sail, catch the mighty wind of God, and see every ‘book’ in your life transformed.” - Dee Brestin

“Through his many books, Jerry Bridges has been shepherding my soul since I first became a Christian sixteen years ago. He has done it again. As I have come to expect, he has provided a sea of theological matter in a drop of devotional  language. Here you will  find God-centered doctrine that is delectably deep and down to earth at the same time. I promise that if you read this book carefully and prayerfully, you will gain both an informed mind and an enlarged heart.” - Tullian Tchividjian

March 27, 2009 | Posted in: Books,Endorsements,Justification,Sanctification/Growth | Author: Crossway Staff @ 7:20 am | 0 Comments »

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Jesus is “Substitute and Pacesetter”

By Nancy Guthrie

When I look over the table of contents of Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross, the collection of writings on the cross and resurrection by classic and contemporary theologians and Bible teachers that I put together, I am moved just by the titles of some of the individual pieces. That is certainly the case with the piece by John Piper, which is called, “He Set His Face to Go to Jerusalem.” Taken from Luke 9:51, this phrase is loaded with theology as well as raw emotion and determination. It draws a picture of Jesus turning to walk directly into the storm of God’s judgment—because that is what going to Jerusalem will mean for him—certain death.

Piper helps us to see that following Jesus demands from us a similar determination to die. Not on a cross, but to our own comfort. “Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem is our journey, and if he set his face to go there and die, we must set our face to die with him,” Piper writes. “One might be tempted to reason in just the opposite way: that since Jesus suffered so much and died in our place, therefore, we are free to go straight to the head of the class, as it were, and skip all the exams. He suffered so we could have comfort. He died so we could live. He bore abuse so we could be esteemed. He gave up the treasures of heaven so we could lay up treasures on earth. He brought the kingdom and paid for our entrance, and now we live in it with all its earthly privileges. But all this is not biblical reasoning. It goes against the plain teaching in this very context. Luke 9:23-24 reads: ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.’

When Jesus set his face to walk the Calvary road, he was not merely taking our place; he was setting our pattern. He is substitute and pacesetter.”

~~~

NANCY GUTHRIE has a passion for sharing God’s Word through her growing national and international Bible-teaching ministry. She has worked in the Christian publishing industry for more than two decades and is the author of Holding On to Hope, The One-Year Book of Hope, Hoping for Something Better, and Crossway’s Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus.

March 12, 2009 | Posted in: Author,Books,Identity in Christ,Sanctification/Growth | Author: Crossway Staff @ 4:20 am | 0 Comments »

Posted in Author, Books, Identity in Christ, Sanctification/Growth | No Comments »