Having written several blogs on the topic of mortification, and one specific review of John Owen’s masterpiece, On the Mortification of Sin, I was intrigued to read a short piece today by J. I. Packer on the influence of Owen on his own life.
Packer has written several introductions to various Puritan works, along with his classic, The Quest for Godliness. He knows the Puritans.
And in today’s article, he explains that what drew him to the Puritans in general and Owen in particular was their Biblical explanation of the reality of sin in the believer’s life and how to combat the temptations of sin. He explains the truth from Owen that liberated him:
Have the holiness of God clear in your mind. Remember that sin desensitizes you to itself. Watch—that is, prepare to recognize it, and search it out within you by disciplined, Bible-based, Spirit-led self-examination. Focus on the living Christ and his love for you on the cross. Pray, asking for strength to say “no” to sin’s suggestions and to fortify yourself against bad habits by forming good ones contrary to them. And ask Christ to kill the sinful urge you are fighting, as the theophanic angel in C. S. Lewis’s Great Divorce tells the man with the lizard to do.
Words of Grace 