Summa cum laude?

Summa cum laude?

Ever go to school with someone who aced every exam and broke the curve?

The student who is guaranteed magna, maxima, summa everything?

At the Seminary I attended, that guy was named Milton.

He was so good that, upon graduation, the faculty asked him to stay and be a teacher.

Now I have come to find that he has written a book which I just picked up.

It is great!

Here is a taste:

“On the most basic levels, I desire fullness, and fleshly lusts seduce me by attaching themselves to this basic desire. They exploit the empty spaces in me, and they promise that fullness will be mine if I give in to their demands. When my soul sits empty and is aching for something to fill it, such deceptive promises are extremely difficult to resist.

Consequently, the key to mortifying fleshly lusts is to eliminate the emptiness within me and replace it with fullness; and I accomplish this by feasting on the gospel. Indeed, it is in the gospel that I experience a God who glorifies Himself by filling me with His fullness. . . . This is the God of the gospel, a God who is satisfied with nothing less than my experience of fullness in Him! . . .

Indeed, as I perpetually feast on Christ and all His blessings found in the gospel, I find that my hunger for sin diminishes and the lies of lust simply lose their appeal. Hence, to the degree that I am full, I am free. Eyes do not rove, nor do fleshly lusts rule, when the heart is fat with the love of Jesus!”

– Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer for Christians (2008).