For there is a season in which there is such a contempt required in us of all relations and enjoyments, that our Savior calls it “hating” them — not absolutely, but comparatively — in comparison to him and the gospel, with the duties which belong to our profession. Luk 14.26, “If any man comes to me, and does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
Some, I fear, if they only considered it, would be apt to say, “This is a hard saying, who can bear it?” and others would cry out, with the disciples in another case, “Lord, who then can be saved?” Joh 6.60 but it is the word by which we must be judged; nor can we be the disciples of Christ on any other terms. But here, in an especial manner, lies the wound and the weakness of faith and profession in our days: “The bellies of men cling to the dust,” Psa 44.25 or their affections cling to earthly things.
I’m not speaking of those who, by rapine, deceit, and oppression, strive to enrich themselves; nor of those who design nothing more than the attainment of greatness and promotion in the world, though not by ways of open wickedness; least of all of those who make religion, and perhaps their ministry in it, a means for attaining secular ends and preferments. No wise man can suppose that such persons, any of them, are spiritually minded; and it is most easy to disprove all their pretences. But I intend only those at present, whose ways and means of attaining riches are lawful, honest, and unblameable; who use them with some moderation, and profess that their portion lies in better things — so that it is hard to fasten a conviction on them in the matter of their conversation. Whatever may seem to reflect upon them, they esteem it to be an omission that would make them foolish in their affairs or negligent in their duty. But even among these, there is oftentimes that inordinate love for present things, that esteem and valuation of them, that concern in them, which is not consistent with being spiritually minded.
With some, it’s their relations; with others, their enjoyments; with most, both in conjunction, are an idol which they set up in their hearts and secretly bow down to. Their hopes and fears are exercised about these, their love is upon them, their delight is in them. They are wholly taken up with their own concerns, count everything lost that is not spent on them, and all time is misspent that is not engaged about them. Yet the things which they do, they judge to be good in themselves; their hearts don’t condemn them as to the matter of them. The valuation they have of their relations and enjoyments, they suppose to be lawful, within the bounds which they have assigned to it. Their care about them, in their own minds, is but their duty. It is no easy matter, it requires great spiritual wisdom, to fix right boundaries for our affections and their actings about earthly things.
John Owen. THE GRACE AND DUTY OF BEING SPIRITUALLY MINDED.
