"The Expulsive Power of a New Affection"

About 10 years or so ago, my pastor gave me a copy of Thomas Chalmer’s “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.” (link)

I would credit it as being one of the most impactful reads of my life. While I believe – to the best of my judgment – that I had come to salvation prior to this, it would be difficult for me to overstate how powerfully God used this writing to lift up my countenance from that of a dysfunctional, defeated moralist, to a man beholding the sweetness of the glory of God in the face of Christ. It helped me to see that Christ is more than savior and justifier, but that he is satisfier and joy-giver; that sin is overcome not by simply trying to resist it, but rather through seeing Christ as better.

I hadn’t read it in several years, but picked it up again today. I highly commend it if you’ve not read it.

Excerpt:

“In a word, if the way to disengage the heart from the positive love of one great and ascendant object, is to fasten it in positive love to another, then it is not by exposing the worthlessness of the former, but by addressing to the mental eye the worth and excellence of the latter, that all old things are to be done away and all things are to become new. To obliterate all our present affections by simply expunging them, and so as to leave the seat of them unoccupied, would be to destroy the old character, and to substitute no new character in its place.”

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Yes, this is a wonderful piece, well worth reading and meditating on.

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