John Owen
John Owen
spiritual jesus business
I have known some good men who have been so addicted to their study, that they have thought the last day of the week sufficient to prepare for their ministry, though they employ all the rest of the week in other studies. But your business is to trade with your spiritual abilities. ... A man may preach a very good sermon, who is otherwise himself; but he will never make a good minister of Jesus Christ, whose mind and heart are not always in the work. Spiritual gifts will require continual ruminating on the things of the Gospel in our minds.
evil temptation gains
Temptation gains power by persistent solicitations that beget thoughts that make evil less serious
prayer hatred temptation
Temptation gains power where we see it prevail in others we know and we express neither shock or hatred of them and their ways nor pity and prayer for their deliverance.
leadership spiritual self
Faith is the leading grace in all our spiritual warfare and conflict; but all along, while we live, it hath faithful company that adheres to it and helps it. Love works, and hope works, and all other graces - self-denial, readiness to the cross - they all work and help faith. Yet when we come to die, faith is left alone. Now, try what faith will do. Not to be surprised with any thing is the substance of human wisdom; not to be surprised with death is a great part of the substance of our spiritual wisdom.
should-have should-have-listened should
I did not hear what I should have listened to.
eye compassion soul
Would a soul continually eye His everlasting tenderness and compassion...[then] it could not bear an hour's absence from Him; whereas now, perhaps, it cannot watch with him one hour.
kindness grace and-love
Not to be daily mortifying sin, is to sin against the goodness, kindness, wisdom, grace, and love of God, who hath furnished us with a principle of doing it.
roots sin hours
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.
ocean rivers issues
A river continually fed by a living fountain may as soon end its streams before it come to the ocean, as a stop be put to the course and progress of grace before it issue in glory.
self soul substance
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.
effort compromise sin
Without a sincere and diligent effort in every area of obedience, there will be no sucessful mortification of any one besetting sin.
faith eye eagles
Some relate . . . that the eagle tries the eyes of her young by turning them to the sun; which if they cannot look steadily on, she rejects them as spurious. We may truly try our faith by immediate intuitions of the Sun of Righteousness. Direct faith to act itself, immediately and directly on the incarnation of Christ and His mediation; and if it be not the right kind and race, it will turn its eyes aside to anything else.
failure giving ruins
Consider that it is not failing in this or that attempt to come to Christ, but a giving-over of your endeavors, that will be your ruin.
self soul sin
Mortification is the soul's vigorous opposition to self, wherein sincerity is most evident.