Mortification of Sin

As I shared yesterday a personal reflection about the current state of my soul, I looked back to a time I "walked with God" when I was younger. The most consistent prolonged period that I could remember is one year. For close to four decades, I could describe my walk with God as a wave characterized by a brief series of ups and downs. Reading Enoch's walk with God for 300 years is something strange or an experience that I could not understand.

My reflection guided me to pick up an old booklet written by an English Puritan. I first stumbled upon this book during my undergraduate program way back in 1986. However, I never gave this book a serious reading due perhaps to the difficulty of understanding the words and the writing style of the author.

The author lives from 1616 to 1683. He had a short life, only 67. I want to live 13 years more. If more years will be added, I would consider that as a bonus.

As I picked up and browsed his book, there were several things I wanted to note.

He identified three principles in the personal business of mortifying sin in the Christian life. One is its perpetual character. Two is the source of such power. And three is that happiness in life depends on it.

Reading this part of the book made me reflect. It appears to me that a Christian is not living if he is not mortifying the flesh. If one longs to enjoy life, then the way to do it is to mortify the deeds of the flesh.

After identifying the basic principles, his next goal is to explain the nature of mortification. He wants to clarify first the misconceptions before presenting their true character.

He then proceeded to present two rules for mortification and enumerated what he described as "preparatory directions."

Lastly, he explained the way to mortify the flesh and warned Christians to avoid self-made mortification which would result in superstition, self-righteousness, and anxiety of conscience.