What I'm reading

I've had several of you ask about the book I'm reading by Jerry Bridges called Respectable SINS: Confronting The Sins We Tolerate so I thought even though I'm not quite finished I'd share a few phrases I have highlighted so far.

It's easy for us to condemn those obvious sins [abortion,homosexuality and murder]while virtually ignoring our own sins of gossip, pride, envy, bitterness, and lust, or even a lack of those gracious qualities that Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit. (see Gal 5:22-23)

We appear to be more concerned about the sins of society than we are the sins of the saints. In fact, we often indulge in what I call the "respectable" or even "acceptable" sins without any sense of sin.... We look down our religious noses at "sinners" in society with any sense of a humble "there but the grace of God go I" spirit.

God has not given us the authority to establish values for different sins (James 2:10)...The truth is, all sin is serious because all sin is a breaking of God's law...all sin without distinction-is lawlessness.

Sad to say, the concept of sin among many conservative Christians has been essentially redefined to cover only the obviously gross sins of society. The result then is that for may morally upright believers, the awareness of personal sin has effectively disappeared from their consciences. But it has not disappeared from the sight of God.

When I indulge in any of the so called acceptable sins, I am not only despising God's law but , at the same time, I am despising God Himself.

Sounds pretty bad so far huh? But there is good news! It's the Gospel. Bridges reminds us that as believers we should be preaching the gospel to ourselves every day. The gospel helps us to see our sin, confess our sin and motivates us to deal with our sin.

It hasn't been easy reading, in that it's so convicting. Bridges says that one of the biggest problems with today's believers is that we have lowered out standard. We look around at the world and think "well I'm not doing that, so I'm not all that bad". Our standard should NEVER be the world. Our only standard is God's Holy WORD.

So for those of you who have asked, "YES, it is worth reading!!"