Make this your Business

Chapter 1 of John Owen's Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers contains a fantastic outline and meditation on Romans 8:13: "If you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body you shall live."

Here is Owen's outline:

-A duty prescribed: “Mortify the sins…”
-The persons to whom it is prescribed: “if YOU mortify."
-A promise annexed to the duty: “You shall live.”
-The cause or means of the performance of this duty: “if through the Spirit.”
-The conditionality of the whole proposition: “IF you…”

Thesis:
"The choicest believers,
who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin,
ought yet to make it their business all their days
to mortify the indwelling power of sin."

Owen says:
"The vigor, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life
depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh."