For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Romans 8:13
“When we live in the present, we give our attention to real things and to real people. This means that we mortify our fancy and waste no time on inopportune and fruitless recollections. Imagination can withdraw us into another world, far away from the only world designed to be the scene of our sanctification. Very often our imagination can occasion a squandering of precious time, and make us miss many real opportunities of doing good. Lack of inner mortification, of our imagination and of our curiosity, is one of the great enemies of our sanctification.”
Francis Fernandez in In Conversation with God: Meditations for Each Day of the Year, volume 3 (London: Scepter, 1990) 419.
Mortification marks the pathway to life. The Koreans have shown the way. In less than a century they went from destitute poor to economic superpower.
They moved from Godless society to God-fearing people.
Yet, in a powerful presentation of the history of the church on Thursday night in Seoul Incheon, they repented of “fancy and waste”.
The prosperity has inebriated the church making her materialistic and selfish.
It marked a powerful admission and challenged everyone in the audience to join them in confession, fasting, and prayer. Too often we squander both time or resources.
We miss opportunities to do good because we have not practiced mortification.
In today’s Scripture, we see the you (singular) tense of the King James Version as a message to all of us. Each of us must die to the flesh to find the path of life.
How does this idea speak to you. It reminds me daily to keep in step with the Spirit.
When we do, we do not fulfill the desires of the flesh, and best of all, we do not miss any opportunities to do good. Let us mortify the flesh friends. Put it to death.
So that the life of Christ, as evident in the Korean church, might prevail us.
The alternative is not mediocrity. It’s death, fruitlessness, the squandering time and money, and slavery to fancy and waste. From all these, deliver us, O God.