Book summary “The Practice of Godliness”: summary

Introduction

You often try to live a Christian life through sheer willpower without establishing a foundational relationship with God. This mechanical approach leaves you frustrated, exhausted, and spiritually barren. Jerry Bridges addresses this struggle in The Practice of Godliness by showing that true spiritual growth requires both personal devotion to God and the active cultivation of Christlike character.

Acting as a sequel to The Pursuit of Holiness, this book shifts your focus from putting off sin to putting on the new self. The author argues that godliness flows directly from a heart devoted to God.

The book examines the foundational attitudes of devotion, the necessity of spiritual training, the mechanics of building Christlike character, and the specific virtues of vertical devotion and relational grace. As you read, you will confront several vital questions:

• What does it mean to be truly devoted to God?
• How do you train yourself for godliness using the Bible?
• Which character traits must you cultivate toward God and others?

1. Foundations of Godliness and Devotion

You often try to develop Christian character without cultivating a relationship with God. This approach treats external actions as the source of spiritual growth. True godliness combines a personal attitude of devotion to God with actions pleasing to Him.

Godliness is fundamentally a personal attitude of devotion to God consisting of the fear of God, the love of God, and the desire for God.

God-centered devotion serves as the mainspring of godly character. Without it, your moral behavior lacks its proper root. Genesis describes Enoch as one who walked with God and pleased God, showing that his life was centered entirely in God.

Defining Godliness

You must look past mere outward Christian character to understand true godliness. Devotion in action flows from an internal orientation toward the Creator. When your heart is properly aligned, godly conduct follows naturally.

The Triangle of Devotion

True devotion to God rests on three essential pillars. The author uses a triangle of devotion metaphor where the base consists of two vital elements:

• the fear of God;
• the love of God.

The desire for God sits at the apex as its highest expression. The fear of God involves a profound sense of awe, reverence, and veneration of His majesty. This healthy reverence prevents filial confidence from degenerating into flippant familiarity. To establish this mindset, sixteen times the expression "I am the Lord" or "I am the Lord your God" appears in Leviticus 19.

The depth of your appreciation for God's love is conditioned by how deeply you fear Him. Your reverence is simultaneously deepened by perceiving His unconditional love at Calvary. You must recognize your status as an object of holy wrath and see Jesus as your atoning sacrifice who turned aside that wrath.

Focusing exclusively on fear without comprehending love leads to viewing God as austere. Focusing solely on love without reverence makes God seem permissive. Devotion to God must remain balanced across fear, love, and desire to prevent theological distortion.

Godliness engages your affections and produces an intense personal longing and thirst for fellowship with the living God Himself. Spiritual maturity involves wanting to intimately know Christ and enjoy His presence, rather than merely performing religious duties. You must cultivate this internal thirst to sustain a vibrant daily walk.

2. Spiritual Training and the Word

Spiritual training requires personal responsibility, unwavering commitment, five methods of scriptural intake, and the coaching of the Holy Spirit.

You bear personal responsibility to actively train yourself in godliness rather than passively expecting God to infuse it into you. Borrowing athletic terminology, Paul urges believers to exercise discipline. Jerry Bridges contrasts the diligence people show in business or studies with spiritual laziness, noting that God works in believers through their own diligent pursuit and commitment. You must train yourself to be godly through intentional daily effort.

Spiritual training requires three irreducible minimums: unwavering commitment, the coaching ministry of the Holy Spirit through the Word, and consistent practice. Just as Olympic athletes need commitment, a skilled coach, and rigorous practice, you need a commitment to pay the price. You require the Holy Spirit utilizing the Bible to correct and train, along with daily practice to develop spiritual skill in the practice of godliness.

Personal Training

Methods of Scriptural Intake

A balanced intake of the Word of God through hearing, reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating is essential for growing in godliness. Bridges details five mental pegs for scriptural intake using the Navigators' hand illustration. Psalm 119 contains 176 verses where the writer relates his life to the Word of God. You can apply these disciplines directly to your daily routine:

• hearing the Word of God taught by pastors and teachers;
• reading the Bible directly ourselves;
• studying the Scriptures by digging deeply into a passage or topic;
• memorizing key passages;
• meditating on the Scriptures by talking to oneself about their meaning and application.

Hearing requires heeding gifted teachers with an intent to obey. Reading provides breadth and an overview of the entire Bible. Studying brings depth through analysis. Memorization stores up commands against future temptation. Meditation internalizes the truth to engage affections and direct wills.

Effective Bible study demands specific mental and spiritual principles derived from Proverbs 2:1-5 in order to understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. The author outlines five specific verbs and attitudes associated with rigorous scriptural study:

• accept My words;
• store up My commands;
• apply your heart;
• call out, cry aloud;
• search as for hidden treasure.

You must approach the text with teachability and an intent to obey. Mental discipline and prayerful dependence are necessary for proper interpretation. Diligent perseverance ensures you uncover deep spiritual truths.

3. Cultivating Godlike Character

Godliness consists of two distinct traits: God-centered devotion and Godlike character. You must pursue both traits with equal vigor under the enablement of the Holy Spirit.

Godlike character flows from devotion to God through the simultaneous action of putting off old vices and putting on new virtues.

Devotion to God is the only acceptable motive for actions that please God. Self-centered motivations such as reputation, feeling good about oneself, or secular moral upbringing are unacceptable to God. All actions must be done out of a sense of reverence and love for God.

When tempted by Potiphar's wife, Joseph refused her not to protect his master's reputation, but because committing the act would be a sin directly against God.

Spiritual power for a godly life comes exclusively from the risen Christ through a continuous relationship. You function like an electric motor requiring a constant outside current, drawing strength by setting aside self-reliance. This connection is maintained by beholding Christ's glory in Scripture and depending on Him through prayer.

Devotion and Character

The Christian life requires holding together total personal responsibility and total dependence on God. While God supplies the power through the Holy Spirit working within to will and to act, you retain the active duty to pursue, train, and exhibit good works through intense personal effort.

Character growth is not dictated by natural personality types such as sanguine, choleric, melancholic, or phlegmatic. God places you in situations that challenge your strengths to ensure the fruit of the Spirit is produced by the Spirit.

Growth in Christian character is progressive, never finished in this life, and directly tied to daily conduct. Repeated actions over time form character, while character simultaneously dictates future conduct. Failing to practice godliness results in active regression toward ungodliness, making daily training essential for spiritual survival.

While shipwrecked on Malta, Paul instinctively gathered brushwood for a fire because his deeply ingrained servant character dictated his actions without hesitation.

Putting Off and Putting On

Developing godly character entails the dual action of putting off old vices and putting on new virtues. Focusing solely on putting off bad habits produces a cold, ostracizing legalism, while focusing entirely on positive affirmation neglects dealing with sinful nature deeds. Both components must be pursued simultaneously.

You must engage in specific behavioral replacements:

• put off falsehood and put on truthfulness;
• put off stealing and put on generosity;
• replace unwholesome talk with speech that builds others up;
• replace bitterness, rage, anger, and slander with kindness, compassion, and forgiveness;
• replace obscene or suggestive speech with thanksgiving.

4. Vertical Character Traits

Humility, contentment, thankfulness, and joy define our vertical attitude toward God, providing the proper soil for spiritual growth.

Humility is the soil in which all other godly character traits grow and the proper attitude for all relationships. God highly esteems the humble and contrite, promising them grace and exaltation. True humility manifests before God and His Word, regarding personal achievements, and toward other people.

Humility toward others expresses itself through mutual submission, serving one another, and honoring others above oneself. Mutual submission requires being teachable and accepting instruction or correction from fellow believers, even when delivered by those younger in the faith or in lay roles.

Apollos, a learned and gifted speaker, humbly accepted theological correction from Priscilla and Aquila, a lay couple in Ephesus. Peter accepted a severe public rebuke from Paul without harboring resentment.

You must engage in specific growth habits:

• renew your mind by memorizing and meditating on targeted Scripture passages;
• confess prideful ways when convicted by the Holy Spirit;
• pray for sensitivity to see yourself as God does and for inward transformation;
• take specific, concrete steps to obey God's direction in putting others first.

Humility and Contentment

Contentment means experiencing the sufficiency of God's provision and grace rather than seeking satisfaction in possessions, position, or changing circumstances. The original biblical word translated as contentment actually means sufficiency. A contented person trusts that God provides material needs and works all circumstances for good, finding soul rest instead of chasing greed or envy.

Discontentment and covetousness are severe spiritual dangers that rebel against God's goodness and incur His strict judgment. Scripture treats covetousness alongside major sins like murder and adultery. 1 Timothy 6:6 declares that godliness with contentment is great gain, while 2 Corinthians 9:8 renders the contentment word as all that you need or all sufficiency.

Achan's covetousness at the battle of Jericho caused Israel's defeat at Ai and his death by stoning. Joshua 7 records this historical event. Gehazi's covetousness resulted in his contracting leprosy, detailed in 2 Kings 5, and Ananias and Sapphira faced fatal divine judgment in Acts 5:1-11.

Believers must find contentment in their unique position within the body of Christ and society, recognizing that God sovereignly bestows all gifts and roles. Romans 12:3 counsels sober judgment instead of thinking too highly of oneself, and Romans 12:6 states different gifts are given according to grace.

Paul's secret to enduring frustrating circumstances is accepting that God's grace and divine enablement are always sufficient. 2 Corinthians 12:9 records God telling Paul that His grace is sufficient.

Jerry Bridges stood before his mirror and named seven distinct physical limitations, including vision impairment and total hearing loss in one ear, and learned to accept them through God's sufficient grace.

You must address discontent through intentional steps:

• renew your mind by memorizing and meditating on helpful Scripture passages like Luke 12:15, 1 Timothy 6:6-8, or Hebrews 13:5;
• ask God to reveal specific areas of discontent in your life;
• decide on and take definite steps to deal with those discontented areas;
• make contentment a matter of regular, earnest prayer, using petitions like Psalm 119:36-37;
• accept your place in the body of Christ as an intentional decision by an all-wise heavenly Father;
• identify with the realization that whatever your position, it is given by God's grace rather than personal desert;
• recognize that every part of the body is indispensable and has prepared good works to accomplish;
• acknowledge and accept that your current life situation is far better than what you deserve;
• rely daily on the Holy Spirit's divine enablement to respond properly to difficult circumstances.

Thankfulness and Joy

Thankfulness is a God-centered virtue that acknowledges God's goodness and provision, while failure to give thanks is a root cause of moral decay. Psalm 100:4-5 provides the exhortation to enter God's gates with thanksgiving and praise.

When Jesus healed ten lepers suffering from severe misery, as described in Luke 17:11-19, only one leper returned to give thanks, illustrating humanity's natural tendency to receive blessings without thanking God.

Cultivating a thankful heart requires personal spiritual disciplines, systematic gratitude lists, and regular Scripture meditation. Colossians 1:1 highlights Paul's recurring practice of thanking God when praying for believers.

Jerry Bridges maintains a personal thanksgiving list that includes his salvation, spiritual growth opportunities, the Bible, church fellowship, helpful books, ministry opportunities, parents, wife, children, family health, political freedom, and material provisions.

True Christian joy is both a divine privilege and a direct duty for every believer, serving to please God and strengthen the soul. Romans 14:17 defines the kingdom of God as consisting of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, while Nehemiah 8:10 declares that the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Jerry Bridges experienced a complete turnaround from a resentful attitude toward a Christian brother to a joyous state by reminding himself of the privilege of entering God's presence through Christ's blood.

Joy is choked off by unconfessed sin, misplaced confidence in human works or ministry success, divine discipline, and trials of faith. Luke 10:17-20 records the account where Jesus tells disciples to rejoice that their names are written in heaven rather than in ministry success, and Hebrews 12:11 states that discipline produces a harvest of righteousness and peace.

Maintaining consistent joy requires trusting God's character, taking a long-range eternal view, and giving thanks in all circumstances. Romans 8:28 offers the assurance that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, and 2 Corinthians 4:18 gives the instruction to fix eyes on what is unseen because it is eternal.

During a period of severe financial reverses, car breakdowns, and medical emergencies, Jerry Bridges lost his joy until the Holy Spirit enabled him to rest on the promise of Romans 8:28.

You must practice intentional gratitude and joy:

• expand mealtime expressions of thanks beyond the immediate food to include other life blessings;
• begin and end the day with designated times of thanksgiving, proclaiming God's love in the morning and faithfulness at night;
• maintain a written prayer request list and keep answered requests on it until you adequately thank God;
• create a personal thanksgiving list covering spiritual, relational, and material blessings;
• review your thanksgiving list two or three times a week to thank God deliberately;
• incorporate thanksgiving as a regular, non-negotiable part of your intercessory prayer time;
• memorize key scriptural verses on thankfulness and meditate on them regularly;
• examine your heart for unconfessed sin or malicious attitudes when joy is absent;
• refuse to let changing circumstances dictate your joy, choosing instead to rejoice always by the Spirit's power;
• promptly confess and forsake any known sin or critical attitude breaking fellowship with God;
• shift your confidence entirely away from personal works or achievements and onto Jesus Christ and His grace;
• view trials and discipline as purposeful tools designed by God to build perseverance and righteousness;
• trust directly in the unchanging character of God when scriptural promises feel distant during trials;
• take a long-range view of life by fixing your eyes on eternal, unseen realities and your heavenly inheritance;
• give thanks in the midst of both pleasant and unpleasant circumstances, acknowledging that God is working for your good.

5. Self-Discipline and Relational Graces

Spiritual growth requires rigorous self-control, absolute faithfulness, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, and love toward others.

Self-Control and Faithfulness

Holiness begins with the knowledge of biblical truth that renews the mind and establishes convictions in conformity with God's will. Without Bible-based and Spirit-developed convictions, you fall into either a legalistic strictness or a loose permissiveness. A conviction is incomplete without a resolute commitment to obey God's commands fully across every area of life without picking and choosing.

Job made a personal covenant not to look lustfully at young women, and Daniel resolved not to defile himself with forbidden food from the king's table.

Self-control functions as your wall of defense against sinful desires, protecting you from becoming easy prey to temptation and excess. Self-control of the body requires keeping physical appetites, physical energy, and sexual desires within God's boundaries. Despite being exhausted after a full evening of ministry healing the sick, Jesus rose very early in the morning while it was still dark to go to a solitary place and pray.

Guarding the heart begins with guarding the eyes and ears to maintain strict self-control over the thought life.

• Evaluate thoughts using the checklist of whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy.
• Guard the gates of the mind by avoiding television programs, articles, advertisements, and conversations that arouse lust or greed.
• Flee from temptations rather than indulging them in thoughts.

Faithfulness is an essential character trait that manifests in absolute honesty, utter dependability, and unswerving loyalty. There are sixty references in the Bible to the faithfulness of God, and forty of these instances occur in the book of Psalms. Jerry Bridges shares a personal story of telling a white lie to a four-year-old neighbor girl about her cookies because it was expedient, realizing that even social lying violates absolute honesty.

• Acknowledge the biblical standard of faithfulness requiring absolute honesty, utter dependability, and unswerving loyalty.
• Evaluate your life with the aid of the Holy Spirit and a close friend to identify specific areas needing growth.
• Make specific needs for faithfulness a matter of prayer and concrete action.
• Memorize one or more verses on the topic of faithfulness.

Relational Graces and Love

Spiritual peace is threefold, consisting of peace with God, peace within ourselves, and peace with other people. The biblical antidote to anxiety and lack of personal peace is bringing all concerns to God in thankful prayer and resisting the slanders of the Devil.

• Cast all anxieties on God through prayer and petition with thanksgiving.
• Resist the Devil when he slanders God to your mind during trials.
• Make every effort and take the initiative to restore peace and resolve conflicts with other believers and unbelievers.
• Remember that you are fellow members of the same body and belong to one another.
• Keep in mind that Christ's honor and the reputation of His church are at stake.
• Examine your own motives and accept responsibility for any wrong attitude or action.
• Take the initiative to restore peace regardless of whether you or the other person caused the offense.

Patience is a multifaceted Christian grace that encompasses long-suffering under mistreatment, slowness to anger under provocation, and forbearance toward shortcomings. Joseph demonstrated long-suffering and confidence in God's faithfulness when he told his brothers that what they intended for harm, God intended for good. You must wait on God's timetable without taking matters into your own hands, enduring through thirteen years of praying over a God-given desire before God answered.

• Entrust yourself to God who judges justly when suffering mistreatment or abuse.
• Acknowledge a quick temper as a sinful habit rather than just a temperament, and apologize after outbursts.
• Use the shortcomings of others as an opportunity to practice forbearance and forgive as Christ forgave.
• Believe God's promises, obey His will, and leave the results to Him when prayers are delayed.
• Rely on the encouragement of the Scriptures and the hope of ultimate salvation to endure trials.
• Meditate on verses like Hebrews 6:12 to cultivate persistence in waiting.

Gentleness is an active virtue born of spiritual power and strength rather than weakness, functioning as a sensitive regard for the rights and feelings of others. In 1839, George Bethune noted that gentleness is rarely prayed for or cultivated as a Christian virtue, remaining neglected through the 140-year gap until Bridges wrote. Considerateness is a key component of godly character that involves being reasonable, humane, and fair-minded rather than rigidly insisting on the letter of the law.

• Decide that gentleness is a trait you want to develop and that you are willing to care about people without rigid black-and-white rules.
• Ask those who know you best and will be honest how you come across to other people regarding dogmatism, abruptness, or intimidation.
• Ask the Holy Spirit to make you aware of specific situations where you fail to act with gentleness or considerateness.

Kindness is the inner disposition and sincere desire for the happiness of others, while goodness is that kindness expressed through active deeds and thoughtfulness. True goodness requires personal sacrifice of time, thought, and effort, and must be untiring even when recipients take the deeds for granted.

• Evaluate your work situation or studies to see if your vocation lends itself to doing the good deeds God has planned for you.
• Ask the Lord daily what He would have you to do and remain sensitive to opportunities for goodness.
• Take initiative in handling mundane household chores and little tasks around the house to meet family needs.
• Model good deeds so that children can be trained by example rather than learning it naturally.
• Give of your time and attention to listen to people who are starved for genuine interest and feel that no one cares for their soul.

Love is the overarching grace that binds all other Christian virtues together in perfect unity and validates your devotion to God. Biblical love finds its supreme pattern in God's actions, expressing itself by giving whatever the cost and sacrificing personal demands for justice.

• Saturate your mind by setting aside dedicated time to meditate on scriptures describing love, such as 1 Corinthians 13 and Romans 13.
• Set aside time to pray for the Holy Spirit to increase your love and confess specific failures to love.
• Obey by doing what love dictates: meeting needs, forgiving wrongs, and putting others' interests before your own.
• Rephrase the virtues of 1 Corinthians 13 as motivational statements, such as being patient or kind because you love the other person and want to help them.
• Share material possessions and personal time with brothers and sisters experiencing material or emotional needs.
• Release your demand for personal satisfaction and exacted remorse when forgiving someone who has wronged you.
• Lay hold of God in prayer until He gives you a vigorous and loving spirit that delights to reach out, forgive, and embrace others.

Conclusion

True godliness integrates vertical devotion to God, personal discipline, and horizontal love for others into a unified whole. You cannot separate your private worship from your public conduct or your spiritual disciplines from your daily character. The Holy Spirit empowers this entire process, supplying the strength you need to train yourself for godliness and put off corrupt habits. You must actively pursue holiness while relying completely on divine grace rather than human self-effort alone.

To implement these truths in your daily life, follow these practical rules:

1. Cultivate daily devotion by meditating on the character of God and maintaining a profound fear and love for Him.
2. Feed your soul regularly through reading, studying, memorizing, meditating on, and applying the Word of God.
3. Depend daily on the Holy Spirit to convict you of sin, renew your mind, and produce Christlike fruit in your actions.
4. Practice intentional self-control to master your physical desires, time management, and speech.
5. Express consistent thankfulness and contentment in every circumstance instead of giving in to grumbling or anxiety.
6. Serve others with humility, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, and practical love.

10 Key Ideas

1. Godliness is fundamentally a personal attitude of devotion to God consisting of the fear of God, the love of God, and the desire for God.
2. True devotion to God rests on three essential pillars where the base consists of the fear of God and the love of God, with the desire for God sitting at the apex as its highest expression.
3. Spiritual training requires personal responsibility, unwavering commitment, five methods of scriptural intake, and the coaching of the Holy Spirit.
4. The Christian life requires holding together total personal responsibility and total dependence on God.
5. Humility is the soil in which all other godly character traits grow and the proper attitude for all relationships.
6. Contentment means experiencing the sufficiency of God's provision and grace rather than seeking satisfaction in possessions, position, or changing circumstances.
7. Self-control functions as your wall of defense against sinful desires, protecting you from becoming easy prey to temptation and excess.
8. Faithfulness is an essential character trait that manifests in absolute honesty, utter dependability, and unswerving loyalty.
9. Patience is a multifaceted Christian grace that encompasses long-suffering under mistreatment, slowness to anger under provocation, and forbearance toward shortcomings.
10. Love is the overarching grace that binds all other Christian virtues together in perfect unity and validates your devotion to God.