Featured Romans 8:6.....What is it getting at.

JonC

The thing is often you post from both sides of the fence. You said John Owen was not relevant for us today. This work is showing that is not true, The truth is always relevant. Now you say we can learn from them.

[QUOTE]But if we are not able to apply Scripture to our lives then there is a problem.[/QUOTE]

Any Christian has to learn to apply scripture for any growth in grace to take place,

 

You have your own opinions,and you are welcome to them.
They are dead wrong.They are not defensible.Your idea of this mythical 10 year rule is a fabrication.
Thomas Watson,John Brown, Richard Sibbes,John Owen, etc. Are miles ahead of most contemporary writers.
The good contemporary writers feed on these brothers who went before us.
Start a new thread on your ten year rule.Perhaps others will support your novel idea.
You repeating a partial verse and saying well there it is, that explains it...does not get it done.

 

Moving forward:

This whole rule is grounded on that of our Savior, Matthew 6:31,33,34

"Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow."

When we have done all we can, when we have made the best of them we are able, all earthly things, as unto our interest in them, amount to no more but what we eat, what we drink, and wherewith we are clothed. About these things our Savior forbids us to take any thought, not absolutely, but with a double limitation; as, —

First, That we take no such thought about them as should carry along with it a disquietude of mind, through a distrust of the fatherly care and providence of God. This is the design of the context.

Secondly, No thought that, for constancy and engagement of spirit, should be like unto those which we ought to have about spiritual things. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness,"
Let that be the principal thing in your thoughts and consciences. We may therefore conclude that at least they must hold an exceeding proportion with them. Let a man industriously engaged in the way of his calling try himself by this rule every evening. Let him consider what have been his thoughts about his earthly occasions and what about spiritual things, and thereon ask of himself whether he be spiritually minded or no. Be not deceived; "as a man thiaketh, so is he." And if we account it a strange thing that our thoughts should be more exercised about spiritual things than about the affairs of our callings, we must not think it strange if, when we come to the trial, we cannot find that we have either "life" or "peace."

Moreover, it is known how often, when we are engaged in spiritual duties, other thoughts will interpose, and impose themselves on our minds. Those which are about men’s secular concernments will do so. The world will frequently make an inroad on the way to heaven, to disturb the passengers and wayfaring men.

(2.) There are a multitude of thoughts in the minds of men which are vain, useless, and altogether unprofitable.

These ordinarily, through a dangerous mistake, are looked on as not sinful, because, as it is supposed, the matter of them is not so; and therefore men rather shake them off for their folly than their guilt.
But they arise from a corrupt fountain, and woefully pollute both the mind and conscience. Wherever there are "vain thoughts," there is sin, Jeremiah 4:14. Such are those numberless imaginations whereby men fancy themselves to be what they are not, to do what they do not, to enjoy what they enjoy not, to dispose of themselves and others at their pleasure.

That our nature is liable unto such a pernicious folly, which some of tenacious fancies have turned into madness, we are beholding alone to our cursed apostasy from God, and the vanity that possessed our minds thereon.

(3.) There are thoughts that are formally evil; they are so in their own nature, being corrupt contrivances to fulfill the desires of the flesh in the lusts thereof. These also will attempt the minds of believers. But they are always looked on as professed enemies to the soul, and are watched against. I shall not, therefore, make any comparison between them and spiritual thoughts, for they abound only in them that are carnally minded.

 

If we are spiritually minded, if thoughts of spiritual things do abound in us, they will ordinarily, and that with constancy, possess these seasons, look upon them as those which are their due, which belong unto them; for they are expressly assigned unto them in the way of rule, expressed in examples and commands. See Psalm 16:7,8;
I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel;
My heart also instructs me in the night seasons.
8 I have set the Lord always before me;
Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.


Most professors are convinced that it is their duty to pray morning and evening, and it is to be wished that they were all found in the practice of it; but if ordinarily they judge themselves in the performance of that duty to be discharged from any farther exercise of spiritual thoughts, applying them unto things worldly, useless, or vain, they can make no pretense to be spiritually minded.

And it must be observed (which will be found to be true), that if the seasons which are as it were due unto such meditations be taken from them, they will be the worst employed of all the minutes of our lives. Vain and foolish thoughts, corrupt imaginations, will make a common haunt unto the minds of men in them, and habituate themselves unto an expectation of entertainment, whence they will grow importunate for admission. Hence, with many, those precious moments of time which might greatly influence their souls unto life and peace, if they were indeed spiritually minded, make the greatest provision for their trouble, sorrow, and confusion; for the vain and
evil thoughts which some persons do accustom themselves unto in such seasons are, or ought to be, a burden upon their consciences more than they can bear. That which providence tenders unto their good is turned into a snare; and God doth righteously leave them unto the fruits of their own folly who so despise his gracious provision for their good. If we cannot afford unto God our spare time, it is evident that indeed we can afford nothing at all. Micah 2:1, "They devise iniquity upon their beds," — the season proper for holy contemplation they make use of to fill their minds with wicked imaginations; "and when the morning is light they practice it," walking all day on all occasions suitably unto their devices and imaginations of the night. Many will have cause to complain unto eternity of those leisure times, which might have been improved for their advantage unto eternal blessedness.

 

3. Consider how we are affected with our disappointments about these seasons. Have we by negligence, by temptations, have we by occasional diversions or affairs of life, been taken off from thoughts of God, of Christ, of heavenly things, when we ought to have been engaged in them?

how are we affected with a view hereof? A carnal mind is well enough satisfied with the omission of any duty, so it have the pretense of a necessary occasion. If it hath lost a temporal advantage through attendance unto a spiritual duty, it will deeply reflect upon itself, and, it may be, like the duty the worse afterward.
But a gracious soul, one that is truly spiritually minded, will mourn under a review of such omissions, and by every one of them is stirred up unto more watchfulness for the future. "Alas," will it say, "how little have I been with Christ this day!
how much time hath passed me without a thought of him! How foolish was I to be wanting to such or such an opportunity!

I am in arrears unto myself, and have no rest until I be satisfied.
I say, if indeed we are spiritually minded, we will duly and carefully call over the consideration of those times and seasons wherein we ought to have exercised ourselves in spiritual thoughts, and if we have lost them, or any of them, mourn over our own negligence. But if we can omit and lose such seasons or opportunities from time to time without regret or self-reflection, it is to be feared that we wax worse and worse. Way will be made hereby for farther omissions, until we grow wholly cold about them.

 

CHAPTER V. The objects of spiritual thoughts, or what they are conversant about, evidencing them in whom they are to be spiritually minded —
Rules directing unto steadiness in the contemplation of heavenly things —

Motives to fix our thoughts with steadiness in them.

And, it may be, we may be useful unto many herein, by helping them to fix their minds, which are apt to rove into all uncertainty: for this is befallen us, through the disorder and weakness of the faculties of our souls, that sometimes what the mind guides, leads, and directs unto, in things spiritual and heavenly, our wills and affections, through their depravation and corruption, will not comply withal, and so the good designings of the mind are lost; sometimes what the will and affections are inclined unto and ready for, the mind, through its weakness and inconstancy, cannot lead them to the accomplishment of.
So to will is present with us, but how to perform that will we know not. So many are barren in this duty because they know not what to fix upon, nor how to exercise their thoughts when they have chosen a subject for their meditations.
So many are barren in this duty because they know not what to fix upon, nor how to exercise their thoughts when they have chosen a subject for their meditations. Hence they spend their time in fruitless desires that they could use their thoughts unto more purpose, rather than make any progress in the duty itself. They tire themselves, not because they are not willing to go, but because they cannot find their way. Wherefore, both these things shall be spoken unto, both what are the proper objects of our spiritual thoughts, and how we may be steady in our contemplation of them. And I shall unto this purpose first give some general rules, and then some particular instances in way of direction: —

 

1. Observe the especial calls of providence, and apply your minds unto thoughts of the duties required in them and by them. There is a voice in all signal dispensations of providence:
"The LORD’s voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it," Micah 6:9.

There is a call, a cry in every rod of God, in every chastising providence, and therein [he] makes a declaration of his name, his holiness, his power, his greatness. This every wise, substantial man will labor to discern, and so comply with the call.

God is greatly provoked when it is otherwise: "LORD, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed," Isaiah 26:11.

If, therefore, we would apply ourselves unto our present duty, we are wisely to consider what is the voice of God in his present providential dispensations in the world. Hearken not unto any who would give another interpretation of them, but that they are plain declarations of his displeasure and indignation against the sins of men. Is not his wrath in them revealed from heaven against the ungodliness of men, especially such as retain the truth in unrighteousness, or false, hypocritical professors of the gospel?

Doth he not also signally declare the uncertainty and instability of earthly enjoyments, from life itself to a shoe-latchet? as also how vain and foolish it is to adhere inordinately unto them?

 

Earlier I posted a link to the whole work, a free ebook in pdf file.

I am skimming through and highlighting some helpful illustations for any would would like to work through it.

The original work is called;
The Grace and Duty of being Spiritually minded.
The whole work is about one verse;
6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

He focused on this one crucial verse in reference to it being both a Grace as it is a God given ability, but also a duty as we are called to a Holy life of service.
He is beginning to lay it out, first by defining it, then by showing..what are carnally minded thoughts, what are spiritually minded thoughts.
He searches scripture to biblically demonstrate these things.

Later on he lists the causes and the cure. What helps, what hinders.

This is not about the book of Romans, It is not an exposition of Romans 8.
Some off topic posts are trying to divert it off the main focus.