||Book Summary|| Holiness is an Evangelical Classic for readers who desire spiritual instruction that is wholehearted and biblically derived.
Spiritual growth
||Pastoral Passage|| Christian creeds provide a framework within which reflection can take place without messing things up theologically and spiritually. Here are a few things that could be included in a creed on hardship and suffering.
||Pastoral Passage|| The World, the Flesh, and the Devil are part of a Christian vocabulary that needs to be reinstated deliberately in the face of the differentness of the wider non-Christian society we live in.
||Pastoral Passage|| Desiring the rest and respite of heaven when you are nearing life’s end or suffering through hardship is not a strong mark of spiritual growth. A holy desire is the desire to see God and to be with him.
||Pastoral Passage|| The biblical metaphor of the church as a ‘bride’ is a rather awkward one… However, the thing about metaphors is that they are used to highlight a particular aspect of the illustration…
||Pastoral Passage|| Growth in love to other people is a mark of spiritual health.
||Pastoral Passage|| Do you feel thirsty for God? Whether it is because you are far from God and long for him, or because you are instead close to him but thirsty for more, this thirst is a sign of spiritual life, and an indicator of health.
Spiritual health refers to the wellbeing of the life of the soul – whether it is alive or dead, thriving or anaemic, growing or shrivelling.
||Pastoral Passage|| Quenching the Spirit’s work could be likened to dumping a pile of wet firewood on a fire – rather than feeding and growing it, the timber makes the fire struggle and could even put it out.
Chris Northcott 