Dwight Schrute- Killing Sin

I was thinking about my childhood on the farm. As is normal in farm life, there were a couple times when we had to put an animal down. Seriously, we had to take an animal out back and put its life to rest. I know it sounds terrible but the circumstances always left us with no other options. Whether it was a rabid dog or a dying horse, my dad would calmly handle the situation. That is what made me think of Dwight Schrute, the character from The Office. Dwight owns a beet farm and the banter of the show regularly references his cold-hearted antics. In one episode he kills his girlfriend's cat, purposefully, and places it in the freezer. He doesn't even bat an eye. Now that is funny!

So there is a concept in the Bible about putting sin to death. The authorized version of the bible translates the Greek word "thanatoo" into the English word "mortify." Literally, it means put to death. The word mortify is found in a couple places in the New Testament, and the most notable is probably Romans 8:13 where it says, "For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death [mortify] the deeds of the body, you will live" (ESV).

Here is my insight: Pull the trigger. Too often I think we manage our sin. I think we take a rabid dog (metaphor for our sin) out back with the intentions of shooting it. Then we remember all the fond memories with our pet and we bring it back home with us. We try to set up some healthy boundaries and even medicate the dog with the hopes of cure. But, the dog eventually turns on us. That is how sin works. If we are unwilling to kill it, the sin eventually turns on us. The situation grows much worse then if we would have dealt with it swiftly.

With sin you need to mortify it immediately. When sin crops up you starve, kill, shoot, dismember, and eradicate it. Do not simply repress sin by hiding it or managing it. Kill it. Do not let it live. Cut off its life source. Change your habits and patterns of life to give it no hope of living. If you are unwilling to totally put to death your sin, then do not be surprised when that sin dominates you. Sin will turn on you and, like a rabid dog, it will sink its ugly teeth in you to destroy you.

Look to Schrute for motivation and kill that thing.

Quote for the Day

This is my goal in life:

"preach the gospel, die and be forgotten" -Count Zinzendorf

A Word about Family Tensions and the Holidays

Anytime an article can make you giggle, challenge the way you think, convict you of present sin, and draw you closer to the gospel all at the same time, it is worth sharing. Dr. Russel Moore accomplished that with this article:

A Word about Family Tensions and the Holidays

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Message from Matt

Here is a video from Matt Chandler reflecting on surgery, pastoring, and life filmed Dec. 18th.

Message from Matt

Video from Matt

A pastor from Texas, Matt Chandler, has recently been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on the right frontal lobe of his brain. He has undergone surgery and is now recovering. Chandler has posted a couple of video reflections about receiving this news. Here is the first video prior to surgery from December 6th. It is encouraging to see such a faithful servant of God walk through this difficult trial. Please watch this video and the follow up video will be posted shortly.

Video from Matt

Repentance by Whitefield

On Ray Ortlund's blog, Christ is Deeper Still, he posted a wonderful piece on repentance by George Whitefield. I didn't want to lose this post in a sea of information on the web so I figured I would link to it from here so I might find it again later. It is worth reading a couple times at least....

The Archaeology of Repentance

Don't Just Read, Reread and Think

A couple things happened over the past couple days... I posted the majority of the books that I have read in the past few years (which seems like quite a few! I am a big book-reading nerd) Secondly, I realized that I don't have a lot of money.

So, I went back to my favorite book. Lectures to My Students by C.H. Spurgeon. This is what he says in his chapter, "To Workers With Slender Apparatus" (few books or means to get them):

The next rule I shall lay down is, master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and re-read them, masticate them, and digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse a good book several times, and make notes and analyses of it. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books which he has merely skimmed, lapping at them, as the classic proverb puts it “As a dog drink of Nilus.” Little learning and much pride come of hasty reading. Books may be piled on the brain till it cannot work. Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of reading. They gorge themselves with book-matter, and become mentally dyspeptic. (Lectures pg. 177)

“Why do you buy so many books? You have no hair, and you purchase a comb; you are blind, and you must need buy a fine mirror; you are deaf, and you will have the best musical instrument!”—a very well-deserved rebuke to those who think that the possession of books will secure them learning… In reading books let your motto be, “Much, not many.” Think as well as read, and keep the thinking always proportionate to the reading, and your small library will not be a great misfortune. (Lectures pg. 178)

So my aim for the first portion of the upcoming year is to not buy more books. I want to reread a few before looking to get new ones. I even have some books that I have already purchased or been given that I have yet to read. This post is an attempt to put these thoughts to paper (digital) and to keep me accountable;)