About 3 weeks ago, I had a complete emotional breakdown. My heart was completely in shambles, and I didn't know what to do. I desperately wanted God, but felt that so much stuff was getting in the way. I was obsessing over my past to the point I couldn't eat; I could barely sleep, and when I did sleep I just had dreams about things I wanted to forget. I knew I needed help, and so I went to my RD. I was open and vulnerable with her. My RD spent some timing talking to me; and throughout our conversation, she constantly pointed me back to Christ. She told me whenever I wanted to think about my past, I needed to look to Christ; to sing songs to Jesus. She told me that me struggling showed that Christ was pursuing me. She then gave me a book called the mortification of sin by John Owen.
So I decided to do a sort of detoxing in my life. I decided to get off social media for awhile, read the book she gave me, and take her advice. First off, can I just say "Omword." Literally, I was blown away from the beginning. Without the distraction of social media, I was able to really focus my gaze on Christ. Whenever my past came to mind, whenever my pain seemed unbearable; I started to sing worship songs to Jesus and pray. The song is so true when it says, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full into his wonderful face, and the things on earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace." The more I focused on Christ, the less affected by my past I was. This is the background story for what I really want to talk about though, which is the book she gave me to read. It wrecked my life people, plain and simple. I'm pretty sure everyone thought I was a crazy for a time because I carried the book with me whereever I went. I would read it outloud to and from classes, and I would tell people about it all the time. Sometimes I would even cry while reading it. It changed my life, and I want share how.
First off, I open the book, and the very first thing I read is: "
Kill lust. Strike it at the root. The mind MUST be defeated, for this is where it all begins." Okay. Conviction number one. My mind is already blown. So I continue to read the preface, which if you know anything about me; I never read the prefaces. In fact, I hate them because I just want to get into a book. But then, I read this: "
The reader is made to feel, above all things, that the only cross on which he can nail his every lust to its utter destruction, is, not the devices of a self-inflicted maceration, but the tree on which Christ hung, made a curse for us." This is in the preface and already one of my biggest tendencies is revealed. The tendency to punish myself when I sin. So conviction number 2. I'm only five pages in and the book is already rocking my world.
So what I want to do is just share some quotes from the book that really stuck out and had an impact on me. I encourage everyone to read the book for themselves though. It is a hard read, but the knowledge you recieve from is so worth it; so life-chanigng. Your view of sin and God will never be the same again.
"Be killing sin or it will be killing you."
"If sin be subtle, watchful, strong, and always at work in the business of killing our souls, and we be slothful, negligent, foolish, in proceeding to the ruin thereof, can we expect a comfortable event? There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed on; and it will be so whilst we live in this world."
"Not to be daily mortifying sin, is to sin against the goodness, kindness, wisdom, grace, and love of God, who hath furnished us with a principle of doing it."
"Where sin through the neglect of mortification, gets a considerable victory, it breaks the bones of the soul, and makes a man weak, sick, and ready to die, so that he cannot look up, and when poor creatures will take blow after blow, wound after wound, foil after foil, and never rouse up themselves to a vigorous opposition, can they expect any thing but to be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and that their souls should bleed to death?"
"Sin sets its strength against every act of holiness, and against every degree we grow to."
The Holy Spirit-"He causes us to grow, thrive, flourish, and abound, in those graces which are contrary, opposite, and destructive to all the fruits of of the flesh, and to the quiet or thriving of indwelling sin itself. He is the fire that burns up the very root of lust!"
"As sin weakens, so it darkens the soul. It is a cloud, a thick cloud, that spreads itself over the face of the soul, and intercepts all the beams of God's love and favour. It takes away all sense of the privilege of our adoption; and if the soul begins to gather up thoughts of consolation, sin quickly scatters them."
"The life and vigour of our spiritual lives consists in the vigour and flourishing of the plants of grace in our hearts."
"He that changes pride for wordliness, sensuality for Pharisaism, vanity in himself to the contempt of others, let him not thinkin that he hath mortified the sin that he seems to have left. He hath changed his master, but is a servant still."
"When a man fighteth agaisnt his sin only with arguments from the issue or the punishment due unto it, this is a sign that sin hath taken great possession of the will, and that in the heart there is superfluity of naughtiness. Such a man as opposes nothing to the seduction of sin and lust in his heart but fear of shame among men or hell from God, is sufficiently resolved to do the sin if there were no punishment attending it; which, what it differs from living in the practice of sin, I know not. Those who are Christ's, and are acted in their obedience upon gospel principles, have the death of Christ, the love of God, the detestable nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, a deep-grounded abhorrency of sin as sin, to oppose any seduction of sin, to all the workings, strivings, fightings of lust in their hearts."
"Consider who and what thou art; who the Spirit is that it grieved, what he hath done for thee, what he comes to thy soul about, what he hath already done in thee; and be ashamed. Among those who walk with God, there is no greater motive and incentive unto universal holiness, and the preserving of their hearts and spirits in all purity and cleanness, than this, that the blessed Spirit, who hath undertaken to dwell in them, is continually considering what they give entertainment in their hearts unto, and rejoiceth when his temple is kept undefiled."
And so after reading this book, I have fallen more in love with my Savior, and have gained a deeper understanding of the depravity and wickedness of my soul apart from Christ. It makes me realize how much more I need Jesus. I don't just need him a little; I need him every second of every day of my life. This is my prayer for myself right now:
Lord, may I be devastated over my sin! And not just because of the way it hurts me and my life but because of the way it grieves you! Remove everything that hinders me from you. Help me mortify sin in my life every day. To truly mortify it by burning up the root of lust inside my heart and mind. Help me not to become negligent in this task. Purify my heart completely. Strip away every impurity so that I may be refined. No matter the hurt, no matter the cost; mortify my flesh for I desire holiness, and I know this can only be achieved through the power of the Holy Spirit. So Holy Spirit, every day help me keep your temple undefiled by the wickedness and wretchedness of my sin. To you be ALL the glory. Amen.
