four - relentless mortification

Upon passionately finishing this post, I realized it would take you a week to read it.  So I'm chopping it up...here's the start...

This sounds all deep and serious.

But it represents one of my strongest and relatively new convictions.

Remember my post at the end of October about doing something crazy in His name and watching Him surface?  (You can read "Go Crazy" here.)  For me, that was preaching in chapel at the Seminary.

I shared with the staff and students mortification as a way of daily life.  Let me explain.

Our culture, hearts and world--and devastatingly, even some of our churches--would have us believe that our sin is nothing more than a skin "issue" like warts.  Not so attractive.  Can be annoying.  Might be embarrassing.  Can cause some pain and irritation in our lives.

But overall, relatively harmless.  If you're not killing people or robbing children, you're good.  If you go to church sometimes and try not to cuss, you're even better.

The Bible, however, God's Word, tells us something VERY different.  Ever read the passages in Matthew 18 about cutting off the hand that caused you to stumble into sin, or to pluck out the eye and think, "Yikes...I mean, is it really THAT serious?  Pluck out my EYE?"

Do you think Jesus was just a drama queen?  Just using exaggeration to prove His point?  Or do you think it is possible that Jesus understood something we don't really understand?  That Jesus knew something we don't really know?

What Jesus knows and what we've been watching unfold from the very beginning of time is this:  Sin causes Separation and Death.

Sin.  Separation.  Death.

It is not warts.  It is CANCER.  It is not irritation.  It is LEPROSY.

Sin entirely disfigures the image of God in us.  

Lies.  Destroys.  Alienates.  Hates.  Kills.

Desensitizes with repetition causing mortal and complete destruction.

Jesus urges us to CUT OFF OUR HANDS because He well-understood that IT WILL KILL US.

That there are worse things than being handless.  Than being blind.

God of the universe has watched sin destroy EVERYTHING it touches.  And He knows it will lie to and KILL us.

Can we live a happy and healthy life ignoring cancer in our bodies?
Can we safely raise our children in a home alongside a serial killer?

Of COURSE not.  Yet SO MANY are trying to live at peace with our sins.  We are AWARE of the sin in our lives, but allow it to remain, thinking it can't be so bad or being a bit lazy with it.  It won't come to much.  Isn't too uncomfortable.  Won't REALLY hurt us.

Meanwhile, it is d-e-s-t-r-o-y-i-n-g us.  KILLING US.

Let me introduce mortification.

Basic principle: Kill or be killed.

Mortification is the active process and continual progress of KILLING SIN in our lives.

The goal of mortification is NOT a means of earning grace, which we have received through Christ and Christ alone.

No.  The goal of mortification is this: to live a life of genuine holiness that results from a gradual weakening of sins influence on our hearts and lives.

And it only requires two things on our part, thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit--a desire for holiness, and a commitment to keep turning actively and deliberately away from sin.

I don't like to speak for other people, and I don't presume to know you, and there are not a lot of things that I know for sure.

But I know this:  Jesus is calling YOU and I to forsake our sins, no matter how dear they are to our hearts, and to embrace His rule and His reign in our lives as Lord and King.

Here's a few concrete and practical strategies I've been working to implement the deliberate killing of sin in my life...