Chapter 12 of Jerry Bridges’s book The Pursuit of Holiness
Another defilement of spirit that has shipwrecked many Christians is bitterness. Bitterness arises in our hearts when we do not trust in the sovereign rule of God in our lives. (p.120, 1996 edition)
And shortly after this Bridges writes this regarding a critical spirit:
We are quick to see—and to speak of—the faults of others, but slow to see our own needs. How sweetly we relish the opportunity to speak critically of someone else—even when we are unsure of our facts. (p.122, 1996 edition)
The quote about bitterness struck me especially hard. How many of our internal grumblings and resentments would melt away if we only trusted God!
How have you experienced bitterness or a critical spirit in your life? Have you developed strategies to fight against these sins that you’d be willing to share?
I don’t know how regular this feature will be, but I thought I’d share some quotes from the books I’m reading. I present these with the understanding that I do not necessarily endorse all of an author’s positions in this particular book or in his/her writing in general. These are quotes which I found interesting, provocative, well-written, or worthy of sharing in some other way.
Full disclosure: the links to Amazon.com in this blog post are affiliate links, meaning that I get a small percentage of any purchase you make on Amazon if you make that purchase after clicking through one of these links.
A Small Work 