“SET your affections on things above, not on things on the earth.”—(Col. iii. 2.) Fix your affections upon heavenly things; this will enable you to mortify sin; fill them with things that are above, let them be exercised with them, and so enjoy the chiefest place in them. They are “above,” blessed and suitable objects, meet for and answering unto our affections. God Himself in His beauty and glory; the Lord Jesus Christ, who is altogether lovely, the chiefest of ten thousand; grace and glory; the mysteries revealed in the Gospel; the blessedness promised thereby. Were our affections filled, taken up, and possessed with these things, as it is our duty that they should be, it is our happiness when they are, what access could sin, with its painted pleasures, with its sugared poisons, with its envenomed baits, have unto our souls? How should we loathe all its proposals, and say unto them, Get ye hence as an abominable thing? For what are the vain transitory pleasures of sin, in comparison of the exceeding recompense of reward which is proposed unto us? which argument the apostle presses.—(2 Cor. iv. 18.)
As to the object of your affections in an especial manner, let it be the cross of Christ, which hath exceeding efficacy towards the disappointment of the whole work of indwelling sin. “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”—(Gal. vi. 14.) The cross of Christ he gloried and rejoiced in; this his heart was set upon, and these were the effects of it; it crucified the world unto him, made it a dead and undesirable thing. The baits and pleasures of sin are taken all of them out of the world, and the things that are in the world, namely, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.” These are the things that are in the world; from these doth sin take all its baits, whereby it enticeth and entangleth our souls. If the heart be filled with the cross of Christ, it casts death and undesirableness upon them all, it leaves no seeming beauty, no appearing pleasure or comeliness in them. Again, saith he, It crucifieth me to the world; makes my heart, my affections, my desires dead unto any of these things. It roots up corrupt lusts and affections, leaves no principle to go forth and make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof. Labour, therefore, to fill your hearts with the cross of Christ. Consider the sorrows He underwent, the curse He bore, the blood He shed, the cries He put forth, the love that was in all this to your souls, and the mystery of the grace of God therein. Meditate on the vileness, the demerit, and punishment of sin, as represented in the cross, the blood, the death of Christ. Is Christ crucified for sin, and shall not our hearts be crucified with Him unto sin? Shall we give entertainment unto that, or hearken unto its dalliances, which wounded, which pierced, which slew our dear Lord Jesus? God forbid. Fill your affections with the cross of Christ, that there may be no room for sin. The world once put Him out of the house into a stable when He came to save us; let Him now turn the world out of doors when He is come to sanctify us.—Dr. John Owen on Indwelling Sin.