The Transforming Power of the Gospel (Growing in Christ) by Jerry Bridges

Author:Jerry Bridges
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: *Updated*
Publisher: NavPress
Published: 2012-01-12T17:00:00+00:00

As the agent of our transformation, the Holy Spirit both works in us and enables us to work. As the writer of Hebrews expressed it, “[May God] equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (13:20-21).

The writer prayed that God would do two things: equip us to do his will and work in us that which is pleasing in His sight. So God through the Holy Spirit equips us to do what we must do, and He also works directly in us that which is pleasing to Him. I call these two aspects of His work His synergistic work and His monergistic work. Synergism refers to two persons working together; monergism is one person working alone.

When we pray that God will change us in some area of our lives, we are asking for His monergistic work. For example, the writer of Psalm 119 prayed, “Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things” (verses 36-37). The psalmist is asking God to do for him and to him what he cannot do for himself. He is asking that God through His Spirit will work monergistically in him. We know that to some degree, we can change our conduct but not our hearts, that is, the deep inner core of our being. Only the Holy Spirit can do this, and He does it monergistically.

How does the Holy Spirit bring about these kinds of changes? He works monergistically in at least three ways:

He Brings Conviction

The first way the Holy Spirit works directly in us is by bringing conviction of, or an awareness of, specific sin in our lives. It is obvious that we cannot begin to deal with a specific issue of sin until we first admit that we have it. Only the Holy Spirit can create such awareness, and He has different ways of doing that. He may impress on our minds a particular passage of Scripture as we are reading our Bibles or listening to a message. He causes us to connect the Scripture to a specific issue in our lives in such a way that we see the application and readily acknowledge the existence of the sin in our character.

He awakens and sensitizes our conscience. The conscience is our internal moral compass, and as it is enlightened through the Scriptures, it will continually convict us of sinful attitudes and actions.

He may bring to our remembrance a series of seemingly insignificant sins to cause us to see that those individual sins are simply an expression of a pattern in our lives. Again, He does this in such a way that we readily acknowledge that defect in our character. He may even use adversity to get our attention and cause us to acknowledge we have a sin problem. Sometimes He sends a friend or relative, especially a spouse, to point out a sin issue in our lives.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.