We must hate all sin, as sin, and not just that which troubles us. Love for Christ, because He went to the cross, and hate for sin that sent Him there, is the solid foundation for true spiritual mortification. To seek mortification only because a sin troubles us proceeds from self-love.

Why do you with all diligence and earnestness seek to mortify this sin? Because it troubles you and takes away your peace, and fills your heart with sorrow, trouble, and fear, and because you do not have rest through it? Yes, but, friend, you have neglected prayer and reading! You have been vain and loose in your conversation with other things. These are just as sinful as the one that troubles you. Jesus Christ bled for them also. Why do you not set yourself against them?

If you hate sin as sin, and every evil way, you would be watchful against everything that grieves and disquiets the Spirit of God. You would not be concerned only about the sin that upsets your own soul!

It is evident that you fight against this sin merely because it troubles you. If it did not bother your conscience you would let it alone. If it did not bother you, you would not bother it. Do you think God will help you in such a hypocritical effort? Do you think that the Holy Spirit will help in the treachery and falsehood of your own spirit? Do you think he will free you from this so you are free to go and commit another sin which grieves Him?

‘No’, says God, ‘If I free him from this lust, I will not hear from him any more, and he will be content in his failure.’ We must not be concerned only with that which troubles us, but with all that troubles God. God’s work is to have full victory, and universal obedience, not just the victory over the sins which trouble our soul.

‘Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God’ (2 Cor. 7:1).

If we will do anything, we must do everything. So, then, our need is not only an intense opposition to this or that particular lust, but a universal humble frame and temper of heart that watches over every evil, and seeks the performance of every duty that is pleasing to God.

—John Owen, The Mortification of Sin (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1656/2004), 5-6.

Read the rest of this great work on christian sanctification and mortification of sin, here.

In the past few weeks, as I am consumed with work and whatnot, the Lord has been leading me in greater degrees of chastisement. Chastisement of my flesh. Early in my conversion all I ever thought was serving God, and learning all I can about Him. Evangelism, the Gospel of our Lord Christ Jesus, the wonders of the doctrines of grace. But yet in all that doing, I yet again fall short in the matter of being.

We are called to be, as we are called the “saints” of God, holy and separated unto His name.

I never really understood what it means to be holy. Yes I know what holiness is. But ask yourself dear reader, how are you in practical holiness? In the practice of holiness itself in your life? Can you in all honesty say that you have desired it above all else to be your reasonable service to Him? Can you truly say that you strive to be holy, in greater degrees each day, in thought, word, and deed?

In the things you think about? In the words you say? In the conversations you have? In the things you do? Are you holy?!

I know I’m not. In most instances I fall woefully short.

I wasn’t fully conscious of what it means to be holy. I wasn’t conscious of the need to be holy, to hate sin, to mortify that sin. O, to be holy for God! To obey all His precepts. To die to self for the treasure that He is. What better endeavor is there than to be that which we are called to be?

As Bro. Paul Washer would say, “We’re not putting emphasis where emphasis belongs! And it should be on becoming like Jesus! Everybody wants to do something, when we ought to be wanting to be something!”—To be like our Lord Christ Jesus, to be holy as He is holy. To be conformed to the image of our Savior! Apart from the obedient sacrifice of God’s own Son, what more is there as pleasing than this act of being?