When someone sets his affections upon the cross and the love of Christ, he crucifies the world as a dead and undesirable thing. The baits of sin lose their attraction and disappear. Fill your affections with the cross of Christ and you will find no room for sin.
Interpretation
Prioritizing love for Christ leads to a disinterest in worldly temptations.
In this quote, John Owen articulates the transformative power of setting one's affections on the cross of Christ. He suggests that when a person deeply embraces the love and sacrifice represented by the cross, it diminishes the allure of worldly temptations, rendering them ineffective. By focusing on spiritual truths, one can effectively ‘crucify’ worldly desires, leading to a life filled with purpose and righteousness.
In practice
In a sermon about prioritizing faith over material pursuits.
Because he is; that is, because he is an infinitely glorious, good, wise, holy, powerful, righteous, self-subsisting , self-sufficient , and all-sufficient being; the fountain and author of all being and good; the first cause, last end, and sovereign Lord of all; therefore, he is to be worshipped: therefore, are we to admire, adore, and love him; to praise, to trust and to fear him.
If I have observed anything by experience, it is this: a man may take the measure of his growth and decay in grace according to his thoughts and meditations upon the person of Christ, and the glory of Christ's Kingdom, and of His love.
Mortification is the soul's vigorous opposition to self, wherein sincerity is most evident.
The growth of trees and plants takes place so slowly that it is not easily seen. Daily we notice little change. But, in course of time, we see that a great change has taken place. So it is with grace. Sanctification is a progressive, lifelong work (Prov 4:18). It is an amazing work of God's grace and it is a work to be prayed for (Rom 8:27).
Free will is "corrupted nature's deformed darling, the Pallas or beloved self-conception of darkened minds"
A man may be carried on in a constant course of mortification all his days; and yet perhaps never enjoy a good day of peace and consolation.
Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places.
There is only one perpetrator of evil on the planet: human unconsciousness. That realization is true forgiveness. With forgiveness, your victim identity dissolves, and your true power emerges--the power of Presence. Instead of blaming the darkness, you bring in the light.
A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which.
I think if a physician wrote on a death certificate that old age was the cause of death, he'd be thrown out of the union. There is always some final event, some failure of an organ, some last attack of pneumonia, that finishes off a life. No one dies of old age.
Let me be the child in the story and declare that the Emperor is naked — or that America is culturally bankrupt.
You cannot be a man of faith unless you know how to doubt.
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