My Year with John Owen

I will be sharing some John Owen quotes this year. The first book I'll be reading is Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers (1656).

The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin. ~ John Owen

Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the should and substance of all false religion in the world. ~ John Owen

The mortification of indwelling sin remaining in our mortal bodies, that it may not have life and power to bring forth the works or deeds of the flesh, is the constant duty of believers. ~ John Owen

The vigor, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh. ~ John Owen

Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it while you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you. ~ John Owen 

Indwelling sin always abides while we are in this world; therefore it is always to be mortified. ~ John Owen

Sin does not only still abide in us, but is still acting, still laboring to bring forth the deeds of the flesh. ~ John Owen

When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone; but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be vigorous at all times and in all conditions, even where there is least suspicion. ~ John Owen

So that sin is always acting, always conceiving, always seducing and tempting. Who can say that he had ever anything to do with God or for God, that indwelling sin had not a hand in the corrupting of what he did? ~ John Owen

If, then, sin will be always acting, if we be not always mortifying, we are lost creatures. ~ John Owen

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible