Jerry Bridges Quotes

The very practice of reading [the Bible] will have a purifying effect upon your mind and heart. Let nothing take the place of this daily exercise.

The Holy Spirit can’t remind you of something you never read which is why it’s important to memorize scripture. When you have Bible verses inscribed in your mind, you’re carrying a concealed weapon to use against the enemy in battle. Find a passage today and begin laying up His words in your heart and in doing so you will be prepared for any trials that will come.

When I stand up to talk, people listen to me; they will follow what I have to say. Is it any power of mine? Of course not. St. Paul says, 'What have you that you have not received and you who have received, why do you glory as if you had not?' But the secret of my power is that I have never in fifty-five years missed spending an hour in the presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. That's where the power comes from. That's where sermons are born. That's where every good thought is conceived.

Read the Bible daily. Make it part of your everyday business to read and meditate on some portion of God's Word. Gather your manna fresh every morning. Choose your own seasons and hours. Do not scramble over and hurry your reading. Give your Bible the best, and not the worst, part of your time. But whatever plan you pursue, let it be a rule of your life to visit the throne of grace and the Bible every day.

Let us ask the Holy Spirit for the grace to live daily according to the mind of Jesus and his Gospel.

Shall I give you yet another reason why you should pray? I have preached my very heart out. I could not say any more than I have said. Will not your prayers accomplish that which my preaching fails to do? Is it not likely that the Church has been putting forth its preaching hand but not its praying hand? Oh dear friends! Let us agonize in prayer.

It is easy to use the phrase 'God's will for my life' as an excuse for inaction or even disobedience. ... My hope is that instead of searching for 'God's will for my life' each of us would learn to seek hard after 'the Spirit's leading in my life today.' May we learn to pray for an open and willing heart, to surrender to the Spirit's leading with that friend, child, spouse, circumstance, or decision in our lives right now.

It is not the thing on which we spend the most time that moulds us, but the thing that exerts the greatest power. Five minutes with God and His Word is worth more than all the rest of the day.

. . . in the spiritual life you must practice. And the only way to practice is by trying to solve your problems with prayer. This develops your spiritual power and it also trains you to use that spiritual power in the most effective way.

First open your heart, then open your Bible.

Wherever God's word is circulated, it stirs the hearts of the people, it prepares for public morals. Circulate that word, and you find the tone of morals immediately changed. It is God peaking to man.

It appears that too many Christians want to enjoy the thrill of feeling right but are not willing to endure the inconvenience of being right.

Start today by practicing constant conversation with God and continual mediation on his Word. Prayer lets you speak to God; mediation lets God speak to you.

If there is anything of power in The Salvation Army today, it is because God has had all the adoration of my heart, all the power of my will, and all the influence of my life.

To start the day without prayer is to suggest the devil is feeble, God is irrelevant, and we can handle things on our own.

How do you pray? Take the gospel of each day and spend ten minutes with it. Read it, and read it again. Walk into the world with the gospel in your heart.

If I immerse myself in the scriptures...I find myself loving more intensely those whom I must love with all my heart and mind and strength, and loving them more. I find it easier to abide their counsel.

I am what I am, and what I am is always due to him; whatever in me or in my words is good and true and eternal came to me from his mouth, his heart, his soul. Sri Ramakrishna is the spring of this phase of the earth's religious life, of its impulses and activities. If I can show the world one glimpse of my Master, I shall not have lived in vain.

God will speak to the hearts of those who prepare themselves to hear; and conversely, those who do not so prepare themselves will hear nothing even though the Word of God is falling upon their outer ears every Sunday.

Discipline in the spiritual life is the concentrated effort to create the space and time where God can become our master and where we can respond freely to God's guidance.

Some people accuse us of too much emotionalism. I say we have too little. That is why we are losing church people to other interests. We need not only to capture their minds; we've got to touch their hearts. We've got to make people feel their faith.

Order my footsteps by Thy Word and make my heart sincere; let sin have no dominion, Lord, but keep my conscience clear.

Were I a preacher, I should preach above all other things, the practice of the Presence of God.... Those who have the gale of the Holy Spirit go forward, even in sleep.

Sometimes we overcomplicate living the gospel. Consistency in acting in accordance with the Lord’s will is key.

God wants us to make Jesus Christ the central figure in our church--not just say that we do, but actually do it.