Mortification of Sin, Part I

I had drafted a post "Making War with Sin" and still hadn't gotten around to finishing it, when I endeavored to take up The Mortification of Sin in Believers by John Owen. What great stuff! I intend for this post and subsequent posts to make comments, chapter by chapter.

It is important to first set the stage as to what "mortify" means. Mortify is defined as killing or putting something to death. It is a term that is not used often today, except to state that someone was embarrased. Before just recently, I found myself very complacent towards my sin, not being truly convicted about it. It is easy to simply be reactive towards sin, saying, "well, I'm a sinner saved by grace, I'm not perfect, etc." Being contrite of heart is something that we as Christians should strive for, because it is not that this is required for actual forgiveness (being justified, our sins past, present and future are paid for and forgiven), but it is an attitude of heart that needs be fostered. Being complacent as I mentioned above is a false comfort. It shows a misunderstanding of the grace that a Christian possesses as an adopted child of God.

Owen points out that "[m]ortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world."

This not only applies to other religions, but to us as Christians as well! Those who would call believers to a moral reformation not based in help from the Spirit do their hearers a GREAT disservice. Owen focuses on Romans 8:13, which reads from the ESV as follows:

"For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."

Owen divides his analysis into five parts, and I will not try to improve upon it, but I will put forth his two thesis statements from this:

1. The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin.

Owen later goes on to say that this is the "constant duty of believers." The apostle Paul bolsters his statement against those who would say that they should keep on sinning so that grace would abound by indicating that not only do you need to not sin, but meet it where it stands! We cannot merely be reactionary, but go on the offensive, being proactive!

Notice too that the means by which this is done is through the Spirit--we cannot do this on our own.

2. The vigour, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh.

Notice Owen does NOT say the comfort of one's physical life. My problem with the various prosperity gospels being promulgated is its grand attachment to having many things and successes of this life, which are the result of God's blessing. But what does it profit a man to gain a whole world of things and yet lose his soul? If you get all of these things, but your spiritual life is in ruins, what then? Paul, in calling believers to mortify the deeds of the flesh, indicates that if they do this, "you will live." Owen indicates that this "living" is not living eternally, but knowing true joy and comfort here on this earth. And no, joy does not necessarily equal happiness! True joy is resting in the grace and mercy of Christ--progressing in our sanctification by mortifying these sins of the flesh brings us closer in our walk with God and in trusting Him, in spite of our physcial situation or suffering.

To conclude, I wanted to insert this observation that I found in a commentary on Owen's book:

Is it any wonder that so many Christians today are shallow, lethargic, and disillusioned with their experience of the spiritual life? Since they spend so little time reading Scripture or listening and meditating on good teaching, they are unacquainted with these truths; they try to live the Christian life by instinct alone—not a good plan, and one that puts them practically in not much better stead than an unbeliever. Such a posture either degenerates into emotionalism with no solid ethic or into hardness of heart, with little love for God and fellow man.

Christian, where are you today? Are you reading and meditating on Scripture--do you even have a desire and hunger to read it? Or are living by "instinct" or by what you think the Bible says? To stand firm, you must have a solid foundation and to do so must be done by reading and hearing the Word preached faithfully. Ask the Spirit to open your heart to the Word and mortify the sin in your life with His help.

A "No" and a Wha?

Well, the day of news about my job has essentially come and gone, though it's only 4:00. I got a call from Portsmouth (almost fell down in surprise, since I haven't talked to the guy in 3 weeks and left at least 5 messages), and the answer? Well, at the last minute, they found someone with 7 years of experience--my wife just said "he was under a rock, I guess!" All I can do is laugh at the absurdity of it--he indicated that they were really looking for someone with more experience. Oh well.

In other news....I called the AG's office today, and no one knows anything. So, it's not a no, but who knows when the answer will come. So stay tuned. Back to your regularly scheduled program. (programme if you're in the UK)

On Pins and Needles

Well, the Attorney General's Office should be getting back to me this week on what their decision is for the Assistant Attorney General position. It will be quite hard for my wife and I to think all that clearly this week until we hear the news--it's one of those things where you just want to hear the news and then deal with it and move on.

My wife and I were talking yesterday after my pastor's excellent sermon on John 11 and how we wonder if that sermon was made to us, in preparing for a "no." Some salient points from the sermon, which covered Jesus' raising Lazarus from the dead, involved what were "ultimate issues." For example, the ultimate issue surrounding Lazarus' situation was not his sickness, as Mary and Martha thought, but the glory of God. Jesus delayed in going there, fully knowing the extent to which Lazarus was ill and that he would in fact die, so that the glory of God would be revealed.

Two comments from this that my pastor made: 1) We are taught that we ought not judge God's love toward us by what is going on in our life right now. 2) God may delay so that we can be accustomed to obedience, suspending our desires and exercising our patience (just as Jesus prayed, not my will, but yours, Father, be done).

God is certainly not on our timetable--but it's hard to hear that, in light of the news (one way or the other) that we will get this week. I constantly feel drawn to the sentiments of the psalmist who cries out asking how much longer it will last. I don't know, but I know that He is faithful, and I must trust. It is a hard thing!

A Tribute to My Great-Uncle Jake

My mother's uncle Jake passed away this month, and I only had the chance to meet him once, at a reunion about 16 years ago. I was told that he had been through a lot, and a was a great man. Little did I know how much he had been through. Here, in the entirety, is the obituary that was printed in the local Georgia paper (I have put some amazing features in bold):

LaFAYETTE — James Kellum "Jake" Levie, 90, died Friday, March 3, 2006. He was born Nov. 14, 1915, in Atlanta.

His later childhood was spent in Korea, and he returned to the United States to attend Berry School in Kentucky and then the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he studied electrical engineering and joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps.

In 1939, he entered active duty in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He was stationed in the Philippine Islands when World War II began, and became a prisoner of war when the American forces were surrendered to the Japanese in April 1942. He survived the notorious Bataan Death March and three years of captivity in Mukden, Manchuria, before being liberated by Soviet troops in 1945. After the war, he transferred to Army Counter-intelligence with assignments in occupied Japan, in Huntsville, Ala., and in Birmingham, Ala. In 1959, he retired from the Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Among his military honors was the Silver Star, awarded for actions against the Japanese in the Philippines during the celebrated withdrawal to the Bataan Peninsula in 1941. In 1960, he joined the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at the newly created Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. He worked there until 1986, rising to the position of chief of security by the time he retired with some 46 years of cumulative federal service.

In 1941, he married Avis Virginia Nash, of Atlanta, a union which lasted until her death in 2005 (that's 64 years folks!). During his retirement, they lived on a small farm near Huntsville, where he tended his prized herd of purebred Angus cattle, indulged his lifelong interests in the mechanical arts and agriculture and shepherded his children through school and out into the world.

Jake and Avis moved in 2002 to LaFayette, to be closer to relatives of their generation.

Survivors include their three children, James K. Levie III, of Huntsville, Harold W. Levie, of Livermore, Calif., and Virginia A. Maloney of Brooklyn, N.Y.; five grandchildren, Julie C. Levie and Edward J. Levie, of Livermore, Kelwyn M. Levie and Ryan E. Levie, of Huntsville, and James N. Maloney, of Brooklyn; two brothers, Dr. Walter H. Levie, of LaFayette, and Jim F. Levie, of San Francisco, Calif.; and a sister, Jessie R. Gilreath, of California (my grandmother); several nieces and nephews also survive.
Funeral 1 p.m. Monday from the Wallis Memorial Chapel with services conducted by Dr. Todd Gaddis.
Interment in Chattanooga National Cemetery with full military honors.
The family will receive friends from 6-8 p.m. today at the funeral home.
Arrangements are by Wallis-Wilbanks Funeral Home of LaFayette.

What a life! Did you notice that even AFTER he was a POW for three years, he stayed in the Army? That he was motivated more than ever to serve his country? We certainly need more men like my uncle Jake with the courage, character and integrity that he possessed.

Here's to you, Uncle Jake. I wish I had known you better. I'd encourage anyone who knows of a veteran or someone who has had such life experience to take some time to listen (not talk)--much wisdom can be gained.

Different, but Good....

Is the best way that I can describe the follow up interview. It lasted about 45 minutes, and I guess that it gave me the opportunity to establish a rapport with the individual making the decision--I certainly don't have the somewhat elated feeling that I had after the first interview, but I have to trust that what took place in the interview will get me the job if God has ordained me to have it.

Now, the hard part is waiting for their decision. They said that they would contact me in a week, so we'll wait and see. Thanks for all of your prayers.

Dog Visit

Today was another example of the adventures that one can have in life. My wife was brought home by a friend of hers from work, and not even two minutes later, her friend rang the bell again, a dog in tow. I had thought this her dog, but in fact it was a dog on the loose that was trying to follow her into the street (a quite busy one that might have resulted in a terrible accident for the dog), so we took the dog and kept it in the back yard for the hour plus time until its owner was able to come and retrieve it.

Our dog wasn't too happy that it couldn't see the other dog, but it was four times his size. Fun times.

Common Grace and the Presence of Truth

One of the great things about living in a rather large city with great library resources is that you don't have to buy CDs or rent videos or DVDs. If you're patient, you can wait for someone to donate it to the library so that you can listen to it for free (though you're certainly "paying" for it through the taxes you pay--but I'm sure that with my use, I get my money back!).

Anyway, I checked out some CDs the other day, one of which was Lauryn Hill's MTV Unplugged CD. For those of you who may not be aware of who she is, I'll reference you to the group the Fugees, or if you happened to watch the movie, Sister Act 2, Lauryn Hill plays the "lead" student, Rita Watson (she sang "His Eye is on the Sparrow" in the film). She's a very talented singer, and I've always enjoyed listening to her sing, though with the Fugees, the lyrics were much less than desirable. However, the Unplugged CD was a breath of fresh air and it was a very raw display of how she was feeling at the moment, showing that she was going through a spiritual journey. In various interludes between songs, spiritual (even Christian) themes were quite evident, mentioning God and how he is working in a person's life and how she was fed up with being "fake" with everyone else. You can find the lyrics to the songs here. It's obvious that she had a Christian influence earlier in her life (or even now) due to the vocabulary that she employs.

This, to me, is an example of God's common grace in that aspects of truth are able to be grasped or even articulated by the world; however, listening to her speak, it is not clear that she knows what the Gospel truly is (though I did find an article where it is said that she is a Christian though I did find another article where she acknowledges that she is a Christian, but her husband is a Rastafarian but that they both believe in God and "God is love and love is very important). Jesus was not mentioned, and when she spoke of the gospel, it was more of a moral reformation, turning from a bad life and making a better life for oneself here on Earth. As Jesus proclaimed that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one may come to the Father except through Him, so all must come, or perish. She is quite right in observing in one of her songs that "through Adam, all die." (see "Mystery of Iniquity")


So what is a conclusion that one can take away from all of this? Truth is present in the world, and those in the world may indeed find it. Her message is good, and even consisting of some truth, but not fully on the mark. However, the Truth of the Gospel in Christ is that which is proclaimed in the Bible, and not a spirituality that we craft on our own terms. Remaining faithful to the Word is paramount, in upholding the Truth that it proclaims--not bending it to our will and our fancy. I can only hope and pray that Lauryn Hill (and others like her) are given mercy and grace by the Father to see the true Gospel, for it is only through Him that it will happen.

UPDATE: I recently listened to an interview conducted by Mark Dever with Dr. Carl Trueman, a professor at Westminster Seminary. Trueman touched on truth present in the world, and had this to say: the world "tends to know the truth but with themselves at the center of the universe." In other words, the world is self-serving, and may take the Gospel and twist it to their purpose so that they can think they perceive full truth when in fact they don't.

Follow-up Interview

Well, the news just keeps getting better and better. I got a callback yesterday from the AG's office, and I have a follow-up interview with them this coming Wednesday at 2PM. The bonus is that not only will I be meeting with the overall Deputy from the section that I interviewed for, but the overall Deputy AG from another section, who is also looking for an Assistant AG. TRANSLATION: my chances of being hired are now increased, since there are two positions available. I'd appreciate your prayers!

Interview Went Well!

Thanks for all those who were praying for me today at my interview with the Attorney General's Office. It went very well--lasting almost an hour and a half, and I am only one of three candidates being considered for the position, which is much better odds than I thought I would have. It was the most comfortable interview experience that I've ever had, and got to relate many aspects of my life, both professional and personal. Of course, God is in control, and if He wants me to have it, it's already a done deal.

From Bad to Worse

Well, my wife and I have returned from the hills of West Virginia, but my cold has not gotten any better--I plan on going to one of those health clinics that are open every day to see if I can get treated. My interview is Tuesday, and the cold needs to go! I had thought it a virus, but the way it lingers, it may be bacterial. Whoever may read this, your prayers are appreciated.

UPDATE: I was able to actually go to our Family Practicioner, who was open (suprisingly) on Sunday, and got some medication. The cold is still trying to hang around, but I do feel a lot better than I did yesterday. I went and had a meeting with my university's career advisor, and he made some suggestions for my interview tomorrow; and I found out that one of the folks interviewing me is also a Regent grad. I will post on how it goes tomorrow evening.

Wild and Wonderful...

West Virginia, that is. My wife and I are currently on a little bit of a vacation--we brought one of our pastors and his daughter with us so that our pastor could check out the Christian school that my wife's parents run. Our church may be thinking about starting a Christian school soon, so it's a research trip for him, and my wife gets to see her folks.

Now if I could just get over this cold!