John Owen Mortification Quotes & Sayings

Those who envy the success of others are normally ignorant to the sacrifices, failures, and dedication that it took for them to get there. — Noel DeJesus

All attempts, then, for mortification of any lust, without an interest in Christ, are vain. — John Owen

Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of thy sin. His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this, and thou wilt die a conqueror; yea, thou wilt, through the good providence of God, live to see thy lust dead at thy feet. — John Owen

After a person learns from God's books how to recognize the acceptable time, he becomes a strategist of his own life and a strategic person in human history. — Sunday Adelaja

Optimism is the content of small men in high places. — F Scott Fitzgerald

And I remember this man who never ran out of poems telling me once that "knowing a book by heart is like carrying a house inside your chest. — Hisham Matar

A man may be carried on in a constant course of mortification all his days; and yet perhaps never enjoy a good day of peace and consolation. — John Owen

A man may beat down the bitter fruit from an evil tree until he is weary; while the root abides in strength and vigour, the beating down of the present fruit will not hinder it from bringing forth more. This is the folly of some men; they set themselves with all earnestness and diligence against the appearing eruption of lust, but, leaving the principle and root untouched, perhaps unsearched out, they make but little or no progress in this work of mortification. — John Owen

The good Lord send out a spirit of mortification to cure our distempers, or we are in a sad condition! — John Owen

Time is the currency - the highest valued currency we have now. And people giving you their time is so incredible. They don't have to like your book, either. That's a totally separate gift. — Lauren Groff

Not to be daily employing the Spirit and new nature for the mortifying of sin is to neglect that excellent succor which God has given us against our greatest enemy. If we neglect to make use of what we have received, God may justly hold his hand from giving us more. His graces, as well as his gifts, are bestowed on us to use, exercise, and trade with. Not to be daily mortifying sin is to sin against the goodness, kindness, wisdom, grace, and love of God, who has furnished us with a principle of doing it. — John Owen

The life, vigour, and comfort of our spiritual life depend much on our mortification of sin. — John Owen

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

When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone. — John Owen

Mortification is the soul's vigorous opposition to self, wherein sincerity is most evident. — John Owen

Without a sincere and diligent effort in every area of obedience, there will be no sucessful mortification of any one besetting sin. — John Owen

Happy people think about how to help others and not how to get from others. — Debasish Mridha

Though they know in their adult hearts,
even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed
for his appalling behavior,
that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,
their wives are Dopey Dopeheads
and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants. — Billy Collins

That 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

Sin also carries on its war by entangling the affections and drawing them into an alliance against the mind. Grace may be enthroned in the mind, but if sin controls the affections, it has seized a fort from which it will continually assault the soul. Hence, as we shall see, mortification is chiefly directed to take place upon the affections. — John Owen

I say, then, that mortification is the work of believers, and believers only. To kill sin is the work of living men; where men are dead (as all unbelievers, the best of them, are dead), sin is alive, and will live. 2. — John Owen

A sense of the love of Christ in the cross; lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification — John Owen

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

The model for tomorrow, and this is the model I've been using with enormous enthusiasm since I started blogging back in 2001, is to try everything. Make mistakes. Surprise ourselves. Try anything else. Fail. Fail better. And succeed in ways we never would have imagined a year or a week ago. — Neil Gaiman

At least I fight my own battles, Alister,' Micah said.
'Really? And exactly why did you go cackling to the dean? — Cinda Williams Chima

All other ways of mortification are vain, all helps leave us helpless, it must be done by the Spirit. — John Owen

Sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet. — John Owen

The work of a believer is responsive, not initiative. We respond to God's love because we must. Like Peter, when called to do the impossible, we do not look to our limitations, but we ponder this: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life" (John 6:68). Owen says this: "Mortification of any sin must be by a supply of grace. Of ourselves, we cannot do it."31 The gospel does not take us halfway there. God takes us all the way home. But if what you seek is grace apart from Christ's blood, you will never get home. — Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

The Holy Spirit is promised of God to be given to us, to do this work (of mortification). The taking away of the stony heart, that is, the stubborn, proud, rebellious, unbelieving heart, is, in general, the work of mortification that we treat of. — John Owen

Tricky the paths a long love might follow, like the spiral down twists of a raindrop on a windowpane. — Kevin Barry

Now nothing can prevent this but mortification; that withers the root and strikes at the head of sin every hour, so that whatever it aims at it is crossed in. — John Owen

I smile and play pretend through the Morning Show in the kitchen. — Laurie Halse Anderson