Have you taken the time today to thank Christ for what he did to carry the burden of sin, so that you can know what its like to live a life knowing that you are no longer bound to it? I pray that your conviction of sin would grow to the point that you are burden by it and cry out to God, because only He grants the grace which provokes sanctification in our lives! Lets pray for one another so that we can put sin to death!
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Mortifying Sin Before Sin Mortifies You!
In my recent days of reading about the old English Puritans, specifically one particular Puritan, Dr. John Owen. I now have a fond appreciation for the Puritans and their passion for living life in reckless abandon for Jesus Christ. The Puritans had a strong conviction of sin and they fully understood the weight of it. John Owen had a publication called The Mortification of Sin in Believers, plainly meaning to put sin to death. A book that every Christian should have in their arsenal. Unfortunately this is a subject that is avoided by most evangelical churches these days and many Christians suffer because of it. Tolerance is sweeping our churches and our households, something that which the Puritans taught very strongly against. One needs to understand the weight of his or hers own sin and the gravity of Christ bearing it to give eternal life. Furthermore the Apostle Paul posed the question, "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died in sin still live in it?" (Rom 6:1-2) If this question does not provoke conviction then you should strongly search your heart to see if Jesus Christ is really there! Furthermore, Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we could experience a regenerative heart, one that longs for holiness and is in constant pursuit of godliness. This further brings me back to the text! "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace." (Rom 6: 12-14)
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I agree. As ministers of the Gospel, we must take our own sins seriously.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Perkins (Puritan and author of The Art of Prophesying) wrote: "A minister must teach his people to fear and reverence the Lord. But how can he teach others when he has not tied that bond in his own conscience and has never been cast down in admiration of God's glory and majesty? In addition, the ministry is a high and excellent calling. A minister is therefore subject to pride and being puffed up with self-conceit....To prevent this, God in his mercy has planned that all true ministers will by some means or other be humbled and emptied themselves. They will be driven to such fear and amazement at the sight of their own wickedness, that they will throw themselves down at Christ's feet, and deny themselves wholly, acknowledging that anything they are they are only in him, and rely and trust only on his grace and help" (Perkins, The Art of Prophesying, 128-129).
May our wickedness throw us down at our Savior's feet.
Bo Rice
one idea that I associate with the mortification of sin is the willingness to take drastic measures to remove it from my life. This is the idea that Jesus talked about in Matt 18. "if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out." too often i excuse myself from taking drastic measures to avoid sin by saying that Jesus was using a word picture rather than a literal picture. While i dont plan on popping my eyes out this week, I do think that there are many situations that I could avoid in order to fight harder to kill sin.
ReplyDelete-Clifton