August 29, 2023
James teaches that sin is progressive (James 1:14-15). Do you find corruption beginning to entangle your thoughts? Rise up with all of your strength against it, as if it had already started to overcome you. Consider what an unclean thought desires. It desires to have you immerse yourself in folly and filth. Ask envy what it aims at. Murder and destruction are its natural conclusion. Set yourself against it as if it had already surrounded you in wickedness. If you do not in this way attack temptation, you will not win the battle.
John Owen, The Mortification of Sin
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Imagine the most wicked things you can and realize that these are the end goals of our sin. We like to think we aren’t capable of this kind of evil, but allowing corruption to flourish could lead any of us there. And as James says in James 1:14-15, it starts with desire. We must recognize these sins when they are only budding desires and immediately bring them to Christ for mortification.