Joshua’s Spear - Joshua 8:26

 For Joshua did not draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. - Joshua 8:26

Sin. It is the hated enemy clawing at our gates. Temptation scouts out our most vulnerable places and sin rushes forward, an army of death attacking us in our vulnerability.
John Owen once said, “Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.” ( John Owen, “The Mortification of Sin.”) It was Owen’s point that sin, even in the saint, still has deleterious effects on our lives.
Yes, we must be constantly at it . . .the determined and deliberate destruction of sin in our lives. Utterly destroying it just as certainly as Joshua destroyed the inhabitants of Ai.
“Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.” - Colossians 3:5-8. We know that sin is of the world, the flesh, and the devil. We know it. We recognize it; so we must do everything within our power to eliminate it from our lives. We must not draw back Joshua’s spear until sin is utterly destroyed. The importance of the mortification of sin in our lives can never be over-emphasized. “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” - Romans 8:13.
While it is true that we are saints being sanctified, sin remains a part of our humanity until we are joined to Christ’s everlasting love in our eventual and certain glorification. “Moreover whom He predestined, these He called; whom He called, these He justified; and who He justified, these He also glorified.” - Romans 8:30.
To live and enjoy communion with our Lord and Savior we must be mindful that sin will forever condemn us and separate us if we are not in Christ Jesus and He, in us. Listen not to the world and its silvery promises of our best lives being here and now. Promises of “the here and the now, of the world and the flesh” are fulfilled only by the guarantee of the devil: spiritual death and eternity in hell!
Let us mortify our sin before the Lord.  “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” - Romans 6:23. May the power of the Holy Spirit give us the strength to hold forth our spears until we have utterly destroyed sin in our lives.