02/02/2024
Don’t just remove the sin in your heart, replace the sin in your heart with Christ!
Owen writes: ‘If the heart be filled with the cross of Christ, it casts death and undesirableness upon them all; it leaves no seeming beauty, no appearing pleasure or comeliness, in them.’
Pointing to Galatians 6:14, Owen continues: ‘It crucifies me to the world; makes my heart, my affections, my desires, dead unto any of these things. It roots up corrupt lusts and affections, leaves no principle to go forth and make provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. Labour, therefore, to fill your hearts with the cross of Christ.’
What does it mean to fill your heart with the cross of Christ exactly? Owen says: ‘Consider the sorrows he underwent, the curse he bore, the blood he shed, the cries he put forth, the love that was in all this to your souls, and the mystery of the grace of God therein. Meditate on the vileness, the demerit, and punishment of sin as represented in the cross, the blood, the death of Christ. Is Christ crucified for sin, and shall not our hearts be crucified with him unto sin? Shall we give entertainment unto that, or hearken unto its dalliances, which wounded, which pierced, which slew our dear Lord Jesus? God forbid!’
Taken from ‘Indwelling Sin in Believers’
