The Discipline of Grace: God's Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness Book

Mainly for the benefit of my future self, here are the chapter summaries I wrote at the end of (almost all) chapters:

Chapter 1 - How good is good enough?
God blesses us in virtue of the righteousness we have in Christ. We are to live holy lives. How? What can spark a desire to do that? Knowing Jesus' love for us. We know that through the Holy Spirit, He pours love into our hearts when we preach the gospel to ourselves. We are reminded of our sin - and so reject a performance mentality where we're never good enough - and it fills our hearts with joy. That love of Christ compels us to holiness.

Chapter 2 - The Pharisee and the tax collector
Sin is rebellion a despising of God and a challenge of His authority. We must see the depth of our sin, that we are constantly beseiged by it. Even if we don't murder etc., we commit 'refined' sins, and we fail to live up to God's requirements of our character. But at the same time we know that God has made provision for these sins in the Lord Jesus.

Chapter 3 - Preach the gospel to yourself
We are to remember daily the depth of our sin. But then also remember that God has completely separated that sin from us, satisfying His justice and taking away His wrath, by Jesus' blood. Preach this to yourself; dwell on it and meditate on it.

Chapter 4 - We died to sin
I forgot to write a summary for this one, though to be honest it is not easily summarisable because it's pretty intense - but super good! Another review gave this summary which I think is a good one - "Christ has delivered us not only from the penalty for sin, but also from the dominion of sin in our lives, which is made a reality through our union with Christ."

Chapter 5 - Disciplined by grace
The grace that saves is the grace that disciplines. We pursue holiness knowing that we are right with God in virtue of grace. God leads that discipline - we trust and obey. That discipline is inextricably linked to salvation - if you are not being disciplined, are you saved? Frequently we cling to a frail hope that a friend is saved, despite a total lack of evidence of the discipline of grace. Better to be real.
Remember that our actions reflect on God - at least, that's how unbelievers perceive Him. And those actions should include both putting off the old habits, and positively putting on the new ones. Those positive actions are just as important as avoiding negative sinful ones. Where does the power come to do that? From the gospel: the law commands but gives no power, but grace commands and gives power through the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 6 - Transformed into His likeness
We are regenerated - a new principle of life is in us - at conversion. We are then steadily sanctified. We are made more into Jesus's likeness, but it's a process, a work done by the Holy Spirit, though He elicits our response to help achieve it. If we are justified, we are being sanctified. We are still in the flesh so we struggle with sin, but it is a struggle - sin does not reign. Our likeness to Jesus comes in loving righteousness, hating sin, delighting in and doing God's will. One important means by which we are sanctified is to behold the glory of God in the gospel - remembering His forgiveness, seeing the gospel's glory, and so being motivated to deal with sin and grow in Jesus' likeness.

Chapter 7 - Obeying the great commandment
Must pursue holiness - out of love for God, motivated by the gospel.

Chapter 8 - Dependent discipline
We are dependent upon the Holy Spirit for our discipline. But it requires an activeness on our part - we are enabled to fulfil what's required of us by the Holy Spirit. How can we cultivate this dependency and discipleship? Prayer. We pray regularly for the Holy Spirit to enable us to put sin to death and to cultivate virtues. But we also, in doing this, acknowledge that we're dependent on God, not our self discipline, to be sanctified.

Chapter 9 - The discipline of commitment
We are to commit ourselves, wholeheartedly, to not sinning. And it's often easier to avoid the guilt of sin than to actively pursue Christlike virtue. We must commit to both. Make it your aim, your intention, to please God in everything you do. Make specific commitments in areas of your life where you need to. And do this all in view of God's mercy - remembering the great gospel message which underlies all of this.

Chapter 10 - The discipline of convictions
Our convictions are, to a greater or lesser degree, shaped by the Word of God or by society. Even Christians around us often set the standards we accept.
We are more formed by God, than the world, when we delight in His law, and meditate on it. We need to do this consistently and habitually. What does your unoccupied mind drift to? Use those unoccupied times to turn your minds to Scripture. To do this you need to memorise Scripture first, as well as understand it. We understand Scripture through dependent diligence - putting our trust in God's help as we study. But as well as this knowledge and meditation on Scripture, we must of course apply it. Knowledge on its own puffs up. And when we fail in these disciplines we are limiting our growing in holiness - but we are not limiting God's grace poured out upon us.

Chapter 11 - The discipline of choices
Sin reinforces sin, righteousness righteousness. Dependence, discipline are to help us not to sin and to be righteous - but it's that which is holiness, not the dependence etc. in and of themselves. Must ask the Holy Spirit for help in putting to death the deeds of the body. Must also hate all sin, not individual sins only or the guilt that comes from sin. Do this by seeing sin's true nature. Then repent, and plead the blood of Jesus Christ.

Chapter 12 - The discipline of watching
The world, the devil, and the flesh (our sinful nature) are the enemies to holiness. SO we must identify areas of weakness - both in ourselves and in the environment around us. Take precautions, pray, memorise Scripture. We always need the Holy Spirit's help in this - we are never invulnerable in our own strength. We must also pay attention to those 'little' sins which seep into our heart (and, I might add, pray to God to reveal those sins to us). We are free in Christ to do anything not sinful - but we should not use that freedom to put ourselves in temptation's way, to become enslaved to sin rather than the glory of god. Instead, watch and pray - watch yourself and the world around you, and pray for help. Pray for deliverance from sin and the devil, claiming victory over them that Jesus won on the cross.

Chapter 13 - The discipline of adversity
God disciplines us as a means of spiritual growth. Adversity itself is evidence of His care. But we should make use of adversity - seek God's purpose in it, rather than make light of it. That doesn't meant hat we shouldn't seek redress for the adversity, we should, but we should also submit to God, accept the hardship as part of His discipline, and trust in Him. Jesus's example on the cross is helpful here - "If there is any other way... yet not my will but yours be done". This adversity is intended to build us in Christlikeness. And we can better cope with it when we look forward to eternity where we will have a perfected character and no adversity. We can also better cope by remembering that even in adversity we're much much better off than we deserve - that's grace.