Temptation & the Loveliness of Jesus

The below three quotations remind us of the only real, lasting cure for resisting temptation.

To respond to the distorting nature of temptation and sin
you must set your affections on the beauty and glory of God,
the loveliness of Christ, and the wonder of the gospel:
Were our affections filled, taken up, and possessed with these things…
what access could sin, with its painted pleasures,
with its sugared poisons, with its envenomed baits, have unto our souls.
– John Owen

How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys
which I had once feared to lose. . . You drove them from me,
you who are the true, the sovereign joy.
You drove them from me and took their place,
you who are sweeter than all pleasure,
though not to flesh and blood,
you who outshine all light,
yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts,
you who surpass all honor,
though not in the eyes of men who see all honor in themselves.
O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation.
– Augustine of Hippo

Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for you…
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. – John Donne

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