A good friend of mine was over last night. We bought four 69 cent frozen pizzas; we ate two of them and watched Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. Little did I know, he put another one of those 69 cent pizzas in the oven. My good friend fell asleep.

My brother comes home, and a little while later says, “What’s that… smell?” My sense of smell not being very good, I respond, “What smell?” Then he poses the question, “What’s in the oven…?” I turn my head around and look at him standing in the kitchen, hovering over the oven with the door open, “Oh, (name censored to protect the innocent) must have left the oven on. You can turn it off,” I replied. He chuckles, “There’s something in here, though…” Here’s what it was:

The pizza had probably been in the oven for about 3 hours.

The moral of this story? Don’t stay in the oven. If you’re in sin, get out… now! Seriously, do you want to look like that?!?!?!?

I’m currently reading Overcoming Sin & Temptation by John Owen. The book is a compilation of three classic works by John Owen, edited by Kelly M. Kapic and Justin Taylor. I think John Owen has written the best books regarding sin, and that anyone who desires to overcome sin and understands its methods should read his works.

An excerpt from the book:
“Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, troubling, disquieting, but if let alone, if not continually mortified, it will bring forth great, cursed , scandalous, soul-destroying sins.”
…
“Sin aims always at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go out to the utmost sin in that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it grow to its head.”
- John Owen, The Morification of Sin in Believers

How true it is… if we entertain our sinful nature, it will carry out its deadly plot to the fullest. Our sin will overcome us and be uncontrollable to the point where our conscience is seared, and we won’t even recognize it as sin anymore. “Be killing sin or it will be killing you,” says Owen.

This is not something we can accomplish on our own, but it must be done by the Spirit. Thank God He has given us the Spirit to help us in this process of destroying the sin in our lives!

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Romans 8:26