"Cursed is the person who encourages you to come to Christ and allows you to think that you can still indulge one sin in your life.
I am not saying that when you come to Christ you will at once be absolutely and perfectly free from all sin. But in your heart and by a holy determination you must daily mortify all sin as grace enables you. Your choice of Christ must be wholehearted with no thought of turning back to some favourite sin. It is either God or the world, Christ or Satan, holiness or sin. They cannot be reconciled (2 Cor. 6:15-18).
As for your pleasures, the truth is, you have never yet known real pleasure and will not until you come to Christ. For only in Christ are true pleasures to be found. A few moments with Christ are to be preferred to an eternity with the cursed pleasures of this world (Prov. 3:13-18, Ps. 16:11).
Objection
But many believers do not seem to be any better than unbelievers! I am as good as those who claim to have received Christ! So why should I receive Christ?
Answer
Among true believers are many false and corrupt hypocrites. The tares look very like the wheat. Some whom we judge to be true believers, because of their unmortified pride, or covetousness, or careless unchristian behaviour, or their worldly dress and their conformity to the world, give rise to the sneers and jeers of the world. God is displeased with such believers. Christ and the gospel are dishonoured. Many who are weak in the faith are wounded and others discouraged. But as for you, you are not told to come to Christ only if all Christians behave perfectly or are all better than you. Hypocrites will end up in hell and you will be with them if you do not receive Christ by faith..."
From The Glory of Christ by John Owen
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