I ran across a devotional book at Dad’s house during our Christmas vacation. It is entitled Knowing and Doing the Will of God by J.I. Packer. I’m not sure how it ended up in his basement, but I grabbed it and decided to make it my 2025 devotional. This devotional is a compilation from other books put into a daily format (a paragraph or two for each date). I’ve enjoyed reading it and have been posting lines from it to my social media accounts like my Facebook page and my X account.
I’ve been thinking about one page/entry for a few days: Packer’s thoughts on Matthew 18:8 and the struggle with habitual or “besetting” sins (March 24, page 95). I’ll quote the whole entry:
While surrendering sins into which you drift casually is not so hard, mortifying what the Puritans called “besetting” sins–dispositional sins to which your temperament inclines you, and habitual sins that have become addictive and defiant–is regularly a long-draw-out, bruising struggle. No one who is a spiritual realist will ever pretend otherwise. It is a matter of negating, wishing dead, and laboring to thwart the inclinations, cravings, and habits that have been in you for a long time. Pain and grief, moans and groans, will certainly be involved, for your sin does not want to die, nor will it enjoy the killing process. Jesus told us, very vividly, that mortifying a sing could well feel like plucking out an eye or cutting off a hand or foot, in other words, self-mutilation. You will feel you are saying good-bye to something that is so much a part of you that without it you cannot live.
-J.I. Packer
The original source of this quote is from his book entitled Rediscovering Holiness.
I pray these thoughts will encourage you if you are struggling to let go of besetting sins.
