Seek to Fill Up with the Spirit of Life

Kelly Kapic, commenting on the life and ministry of John Owen:

The goal of the Christian life is not external conformity or mindless action, but a passionate love for God informed by the mind and embraced by the will. So the path forward is not to decrease one’s affections but rather to enlarge them and fill them with “heavenly things.” Here one is not trying to escape the painful realities of this life but rather endeavoring to reframe one’s perspective of life around a much larger canvas that encompasses all of reality. To respond to the distorting nature of sin you must set your affections on the beauty and glory of God, the loveliness of Christ, and the wonder of the gospel: “Were our affections filled, taken up, and possessed with these things… what access could sin, with its painted pleasures, with its sugared poisons, with its envenomed baits, have unto our souls?” Resisting sin, according to this Puritan divine, comes not by deadening your affections but by awakening them to God himself. Do not seek to empty your cup as a way to avoid sin, but rather seek to fill it up with the Spirit of life, so there is no longer room for sin.

from Overcoming Sin and Temptation (by John Owen; edited by Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor), Crossway, 28.

“And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
(Colossians 1:21-23)

[Fridays are for Faithful Saints of Before. Every Friday we highlight the life and/or ministry of a Christian from the past.]