Medication vs. Mortification

When sin rears its ugly head there are essentially two roads before you: medication or mortification. The former has been tried by every man under the sun and there is nothing distinctly Christian about it. By medication, I do not only mean prescription pills—though often such pills classify. I mean any attempt to deal with little tormenting transgressions apart from the person of the Spirit, any attempt to manage the miserableness of your errors apart from divine intervention. Such medications often include the impermissible: drunkenness, marijuana, pornography, fault-finding, and modern therapeutic goo.

But they can just as well include the permissible: Netflix, fine-dining, Instagram, YouTube, and shopping. So this problem of medicating is a tricky business. There is, after all, nothing wrong with a glass of wine, or a TV show, and you would no doubt look lovely in that new pair of shoes. But you have likely experienced a long scroll on the socials only to hear God wake you out of your stupor with, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” Or in the case of the shopping spree, “What spendest thou here, Elisha?” How do we avoid this medicating?

Scripture says that if through the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the body, you will live (Romans 8:13). And that “through the Spirit” makes all of the difference. The peculiarity of Christianity is that the remedy for sin must come from above the sun. Nothing on earth will do, just as nothing under the earth will do. Saul already tried that with the witch of Endor. But all the help you need, and much more for that matter, is readily available to you. Just enter the heavens, tell the Most High where it hurts and what you’ve done to make it so. The Spirit will do the rest.

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