At War

I'm taking author/blogger Tim Challies up on his invitation to "read a Christian classic together." That's a commitment to read one chapter of John Owen's Overcoming Sin and Temptation per week for the next fourteen weeks.  I'm going to try to summarize my notes/reflections from each week in verse.  Here's my response to Chapter 1, which we read last week.

At War

Within each one of God’s elect

A fearsome war doth rage.

There is a side who seeks for God:

The other would that love assuage.

The man who drives this earthly side

Is bloodied, ugly, dead.

For he was crucified with Christ –

Yet he rears his mangled head.

The mightiest weapon this man yields

Is called complacency.

For he conspires to make his foe

Leave off intensity.

The other man is clothed in white –

The garments aren’t his own.

They were bought with the shed blood

Of Him who for sin atoned.

The sword that this man bears

Is a sword that dwells within.

It is the Holy Spirit of God

Who can only conquer sin.

He empowers this new man

To fight his mortal foe;

A brief cessation from the fight

Brings only bitter woe. 

I know the sorrow of this war –

It rages within me.

For fighting to possess my soul

Are Friend and Enemy.

I do not fear the battle’s end:

The outcome is secure.

Yet I know the peace of heavenly life

Only when I endure.

The sin that lives within my heart

I must mortify.

For only as I combat self

Do I God glorify.

- Sarah Mowery