Mortification...It's Time to Kill Sin

As I continue on in my walk with the Lord I realize more than ever that this Christian life, this life of holiness is truly a battle and a hard one at that. It is a constant daily fight to live in the Spirit and deny the flesh...but the more that I am reminded through the Word of His grace and the strength that He provides in allowing us to say NO to sin and put on righteousness the more encouraged I become to run the race with endurance.

Recently I have come across the truth in putting sin to death, what that really means in light of the Word and more importantly how we as followers of the Lord are commanded to do that on a daily basis and throughout our lives here on earth. What one first must realize is that when we read in Colossians 3:5 that we are to put to DEATH the deeds of the flesh that we are called to MORTIFY them. That is actually what the Greek translation means to destory the strength or vitality of and literally put to death that deed. That means that it is no longer living...that is a powerful word and an even more powerful reality. We are to destory the viatlity of sin in our life and make sure that it no longer is reigining in our bodies, and we can be encouraged by remembering that through the blood of Christ sin has been conquered and we no longer are bound to it. But how is this mortification done?

Well Jerry Bridges said it well when he said, "Mortification must be done by the strength and under the direction of the Holy Spirit." It is through His power that we have the strength given to our abilities and efforts to mortify the flesh and sinful nature in our hearts. It begins with conviction. When we are persuaded by the Spirit to live that holy life for Christ, we begin being convicted that without holiness nobody will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). In this conviction of holiness, we also develop conviction in specific areas of obedience. These convictions are made through continued feeding on the Word of God. We, even as Christians have been so drenched by the world and its values; and it is only by the Word of God that our values can be remolded and sanctified in the Truth. We must remember that on our pursuit of holiness we must be growing in our obedience to Him and the only way we can obey Him is if we know His commands, and what He expects of us in that obedience. A very effective way is to memorize. That is where I believe most Christians neglect their spiritual walk and the discipline that is lacking most because it seems either monotonous or difficult, but if we are going to call ourselves Christians we must realize that it is VITAL! David said it best in Psalm 119:11 when he said, " I have hidden your Word in my heart that I might not sin against you." Memorization's goal is application of the Word to our lives. But back to that whole idea of conviction...realize that our conviction demands action. It is pointless in our progress of holiness if we ignore it and harden our hearts time and time again. Our conviction must govern our actions. I have heard many Christians ask how we develop convictions about areas that are not SPECIFICALLY laid out in Scripture and I found Jerry Bridges system of developing convictions in those areas both biblical and helpful; the formula is four basic questions that are based on three verses in 1 Corinthians:

1. "Everything is permissible for me'--but not everything is beneficial" (1 Corinthians 6:12)-- Ask yourself, "Is it helpful---physically, spiritually and mentally?
2. "Everything is permissibl for me'---but I will not be mastered by anything" (1 Corinthians 6:12)-- Ask yourself, "Does it bring me under its power?"
3. "Therefore if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall" (1 Corinthians 8:13)-- Ask yourself, "Does it hurt others?"
4. "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31)-- Ask yourself, "Does it glorify God?"

Asking yourself these things will help you in developing conviction in your life if you are willing to do it! Remember it may not be the activities in our lives themself that are sinful but maybe the responses to those. And a little sidebar on conviction for a moment based on Romans 14...Christians do differ in their convictions in certain issues (now I am not talking about areas where God's Will is CLEARLY laid out). We must remember a few simple principles in this area...We should make sure not to judge those who have different convictions from ours, we should make sure that whatever our convictions are that they are from the Lord and in obedience to Him and lastly that are convictions are developed to the Lord and that we stay true to them. "If we go against our convictions we are sinning, even though others may have perfect freedom in that particular thing" (Bridges). As we pursue holiness we need to make sure our attitude is to develop these convictions out of obedience.

The second thing that we must develop if we really want to put the misdeeds of the flesh to death is commitment. Luke 14 is a tough but honest chapter in Scripture in which we read about how we MUST be willing to give up ANYTHING to follow Christ. For some reason we have the tendency to say, "just one more time" to our sinful habits. Whether it be overindulging in something or lusting after something else, today must be the day we STOP saying "just once more" and commit to go all out in the battle. We have to make it our aim not to sin! Now if we make that our aim we must realize that we are going to be hit with temptation from all sides. Bridges says, "There is no point in praying for victory over temptation if we are not willing to make a commtiment to say no to it." We must learn to deny tempation to mortify these deeds...learning is a slow process and painful at times because our old habits are hard to break. But with persistence and endurance we can see the Lord begin to cultivate new habits to replace the old. How exciting it is to see the reward of obedience.

So if we are really going to get serious about holiness, we need to get serious about mortifying...killing the misdeeds of the body. We need to start saying NO to temptaiton and start today, we can't afford compromise anymore. And oh the reward we will reap as we are sanctificed and become more and more like Jesus Christ and what joy it will be when we see our Maker face and are made perfect in His sight!!