This book is really good. No wonder why many Christians recommend it. It’s time that you read it as well. Let’s encourage and motivate each other in our pursuit of holiness because God says that we should be holy as He is holy. (1 Pet. 1:15) Holiness is the pathway to true happiness because as we become holier, we become closer to the God whose presence is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. (Ps. 16:11)

This is a book authored by Jerry Bridges. I just finished this book today. This book has proved to be a blessing to my soul. It has challenged me to have a radical commitment in my pursuit of holiness. In this article, allow me to share the lessons that I have learned from the book.
One of the lessons that struck me the most is that holiness is my responsibility. Holiness does not just happen when I sit there and do nothing. I need to make every effort in applying Scripture in my life by the help of the Holy Spirit to produce holiness in me.
Jerry Bridges made an illustration about a farmer who does his work to ensure that the crops are good for harvest but also relies on God for rain and sunshine. This is a picture of our pursuit of holiness. We do our part by putting sin to death and obeying God’s commandments and relying to the Holy Spirit in our pursuit. We should do what we must do. God won’t do it for us. But we need also to rely on God’s help because at the end of the day, it is Him who works in us. (Phil. 2:13)
Another lesson is that, in this pursuit of holiness, we would be greatly aware of how sinful we are and how we have violated God’s commandments. That is why, it is important to remind ourselves of our standing in Christ. We pursue holiness not to be accepted by God but because we are already accepted by God. There is a huge difference.
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God uses His people to encourage and to motivate us to fight the good fight of faith and faithfully finish the race. Are we training ourselves to be lovers of good? Or do we just give in to our sinful hearts and break others with what we say? There is so much wisdom in silence. In silence, we learn not to speak words that might hurt others. In silence, we become good listeners rather than unwise talkers. 

but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. (Titus 1:8)
This is just a portion of the passage containing qualifications set for overseers found in Titus 1:7-9. I would like to highlight on one key qualification: a lover of good. These Christlike virtues are to be exemplified by overseers as leaders of the church but it does not mean to say that it’s not applicable to all Christians as well. Paul said that we were to imitate him as he imitated Christ. (1 Cor. 11:1) So, the cultivation of these Christlike virtues are not just for a few but for all believers.
Are we lovers of good? Are we people whose hearts are bent to appreciate someone rather than condemn them? Are we people whose eyes are trained to see the good rather than the bad? Unfortunately, our evil hearts are bent to condemn, complain, and malign. Being a lover of good is not second nature to us. We need the help of God to train our hearts to be lovers of good.
Practically speaking, we can train ourselves to be lovers of good by appreciating evidences of grace in the lives of others.
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 We possess the greatest thing in life, and the only thing that truly matters is a saving relationship with God through Christ. Despite the suffering, brokenness, pain, and problems that we experience, we still have God and His amazing love for us. This amazing love preserves us until the very end; until we experience it full in all eternity – where sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Rom. 8:18) 

Have you ever felt defeated in life? Do you feel like the only thing that you experience is just losing so much in life? Do troubles and problems drown you to the point of giving up? Does your sickness weaken you to the point that you do not want to live anymore?
If we try to set our minds on the problems we have in life then we would really feel discouraged and defeated. But Paul says in Romans 8:37 that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” How on earth are we more than conquerors despite the pain and brokenness that we experience in this sin-stained and sin-scarred world? We are more than conquerors through Christ. Christ is the one who loved us and He showed His unfathomable and heart-gripping love when He died on behalf of us on the cross.
In Romans 8:37, Paul wrote there: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” What are these things that Paul is talking about? In verses 35 and 36, He asked: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” These are the things Paul wrote about. We are more than conquerors despite these things. Despite tribulation. Despite distress. Despite persecution. Despite famine. Despite nakedness. Despite danger. Despite sword. Why? Because these things are not strong enough to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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Let us anchor our emotions on God and His promises. Nothing can pluck us out of His hand. Nothing can separate us from His love. He holds us fast and He keeps us close. He is our Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer. He is our heavenly Father who knows our needs even if we do not ask Him. 

Have you experienced volatility in your emotions? Happiness and sadness seem to be like a rollercoaster ride because it is anchored to the ups and downs of life. I do not mean to invalidate emotions or to discourage people to feel and entertain emotions. But my point is to anchor our emotions on the stability of God and the eternality of His word, and not on the volatility of our circumstances.
The apostle Paul knows this well. Even in the midst of an unwanted and downgrading circumstance, he still commanded the readers of his letter to rejoice in the Lord. God said through Paul: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” (Phil. 4:4)

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Truly, nothing and no one can ever break this link because it is God who authors and accomplishes it all together. As you can notice, each sequence in this unbreakable link, are all acts of God. Indeed, this is what gives us assurance, that it is God who authored our salvation. And He is not just the Author, He is also the Accomplisher, the Sustainer, and the Finisher. 

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:28-30)
This is the passage where the unbreakable link of salvation, or the golden chain of salvation, is found. It’s a comfort to know that God holds everything in our salvation – the beginning, the end, and everything in between. That is why this passage is worth memorizing and worth daily remembering because it points us to our great God who saved us. Kindly join me as I meditate upon God’s amazing grace when He foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified us.
The first word to be mentioned in the unbreakable link is “foreknew”. The knowledge of God that is talked about here is not just God’s prior knowledge, meaning that God knows all things that will happen before it happens. It’s deeper than that. The level of knowledge used here is deeper than intellectual head knowledge, it is knowledge in an intimate sense. A knowledge that goes deeper than the intellect and has one’s loving affection. Just as it is used in other verses like in this passage: “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain” (Gen. 4:1). This level of knowing is used to describe the consummation of a couple’s love and then the conception of the miracle of child-bearing. And God, our Husband, fully knows us deeply and intimately, that it is better to use “foreloved” instead of “foreknew”. Indeed, it is sweeter to know that before the foundation of the world, God chose to set His heart upon us.
The heartbeat of our salvation is grounded upon God’s love for us. A love that transcends time because it is given before time began. And this same eternal love has set our destiny toward Christlikeness as mentioned in this passage: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son”. His eternal love governed our wonderful destiny: conformity to Christ. God, by His love, decided beforehand what will take place in the end for us. He wants to save us through Christ, for Christ, and to Christ. That is why our life’s ultimate end is Christlikeness because it is the only way that we would be a pleasing offering for our Savior, that our lives point to Him because our image reflects His image. Even though we could never fully reflect Christ in our sanctification, we will fully reflect Him in our glorification because sin will be no more. He is our Firstborn, and we have eternity to perfectly follow hard after Him to image His image.
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We are still responsible for all those bad choices, it’s comforting to know that our God is in control over all things. And He could use even our bad choices for His glory and our good. We should also always go back to our Suffering Savior knowing that our misuse of time was fully paid for on the cross of Christ. Our sinfulness should deepen our love for the One who suffered and died for us. 

I always regret the time that I have misspent. I always regret the valuable tasks I could do that are foregone because I chose other tasks to do. Unfortunately, there was a season in my life when the task that I chose to invest my time in did not have an eternal value, if not a waste of time. There was a season in my life when I played a game that costed me so much of time.
As I look back and reflect, I could have used that time to do valuable tasks such as reading. I checked the number of hours I wasted, which was roughly 3,500 hours. If I could finish one book in 30 hours then I would have lost, approximately 116 books, because of my unwise use of time.
Every time I think of the things that I forgone because of an unwise decision that I made, I cringe in shame because I know that those wasted hours could never be recovered. Nevertheless, as I move forward with my life, I am more adamant about using time wisely the remaining hours that I have in the life God has given me.
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In Christ, there is nothing that we could ever do for our Father to disown us. The acceptance that we receive from the Creator and Sustainer of the universe should overshadow the acceptance that we try to achieve from other people whose opinion does not truly matter. At the end of the day, only God could rightfully judge us and hold us accountable. 

We long to be accepted. Sadly, we look for acceptance in the wrong places. Usually, we look for acceptance from our families, our workmates, and our friends. If we make the acceptance from the people in our lives as something that we derive our value from then we would be distressed every time people do not affirm us. It could be a snare that would make us please people rather than God.
So, what do we when the desire to be accepted sets in?
The greatest acceptance that we could ever receive is the acceptance that God gives when a person puts his faith in Jesus Christ. In Christ, we are eternally accepted by our Father.
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We are not our own because we are bought with the precious blood of Christ. (1 Cor. 6:20) So let us live for God; our rightful Owner; our righteous Master; our all-wise Creator. And as we joyfully live for Him and sacrificially live for others, we know deep inside our hearts that there is where our utmost joy can be found. 

Apart from the transforming grace of God, it is natural for us to live for ourselves. We want to pursue our dreams, desires, and plans without due regard if God is also pleased as we pursue these things in our lives. As we pursue these things for ourselves, we realize deep inside our hearts that there is always something missing. We also realize that it is tiring to live for one’s self. We are not meant to live for ourselves. Our selves will always fail us. Our selves will just want more and more and more of what we pursue. It’s a never-ending vicious cycle of wanting more and being empty in the process.
We are meant to live for Someone bigger than ourselves. We are meant to live for the One who created us; the One who made us for his purpose and design.
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Gladly surrender all your worries, problems, and troubles in the hands that bled for you. Have faith for He is in charge over everything. Always remember that our Father perfectly knows what’s best for us; that our Father perfectly loves us and wants to give what’s best for us; that our Father is sovereign and has the power to give what’s best for us.

Lately, I have been struggling with overthinking. There are nights when I cannot sleep easily because I am just overthinking problems and contemplating solutions to solve them. It is okay to ask God for wisdom and guidance over our problems and grant us the light we need so that we know the path we ought to take in light of the darkness that we are in. But there are times when I try to put matters in my own hands as if I am the one who can fully and finally solve my problems; as if I am the one who knows it all; as if I am the one who can work with all my might to be able to surpass whatever obstacles I would have in this life.
That is why there are times when overthinking becomes sinful when we try to replace the throne of God in handling and solving our problems.
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