27 Bible Verses about Mortification

Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He was condemned, smitten with remorse he brought back the thirty shekels to the High Priests and Elders and said, "I have sinned, in betraying to death one who is innocent." "What does that matter to us?" they replied; it is your business." Flinging the shekels into the Sanctuary he left the place, and went and hanged himself.

Then calling to Him the crowd and also His disciples, He said to them, "If any one is desirous of following me, let him ignore self and take up his cross, and so be my follower. For whoever is bent on securing his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the Good News, will secure it.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If any one desires to follow me, let him renounce self and take up his cross, and so be my follower. For whoever desires to save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it.

And He said to all, "If any one is desirous of following me, let him ignore self and take up his cross day by day, and so be my follower. For whoever desires to save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake shall save it.

We know what love is--through Christ's having laid down His life on our behalf; and in the same way we ought to lay down our lives for our brother men.

For if you so live, death is near; but if, through being under the sway of the spirit, you are putting your old bodily habits to death, you will live.

Therefore put to death your earthward inclinations--fornication, impurity, sensual passion, unholy desire, and all greed, for that is a form of idolatry.

If therefore your eye, even the right eye, is a snare to you, tear it out and away with it; it is better for you that one member should be destroyed rather than that your whole body should be thrown into Gehenna. And if your right hand is a snare to you, cut it off and away with it; it is better for you that one member should be destroyed rather than that your whole body should go into Gehenna.

Against such things as these there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their lower nature with its passions and appetites.

But as for me, God forbid that I should glory in anything except the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, upon which the world is crucified to me, and I am crucified to the world.

Dear friends, I entreat you as pilgrims and foreigners not to indulge the cravings of your lower natures: for all such cravings wage war upon the soul.

This we know--that our old self was nailed to the cross with Him, in order that our sinful nature might be deprived of its power, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin; for he who has paid the penalty of death stands absolved from his sin.

to put away, in regard to your former mode of life, your original evil nature which is doomed to perish as befits its misleading impulses, and to get yourselves renewed in the temper of your minds and clothe yourselves

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me; and the life which I now live in the body I live through faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up to death on my behalf.

And do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

So, my brethren, to you also the Law died through the incarnation of Christ, that you might be wedded to Another, namely to Him who rose from the dead in order that we might yield fruit to God.

For we, alive though we are, are continually surrendering ourselves to death for the sake of Jesus, so that in this mortal nature of ours it may also be clearly shown that Jesus lives. Thus we are constantly dying, while you are in full enjoyment of Life.

I long to know Christ and the power which is in His resurrection, and to share in His sufferings and die even as He died;

If you have died with Christ and have escaped from the world's rudimentary notions, why, as though your life still belonged to the world, do you submit to such precepts as

Faithful is the saying: "If we died with Him, we shall also live with Him;

but I hit hard and straight at my own body and lead it off into slavery, lest possibly, after I have been a herald to others, I should myself be rejected.

Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as if I were out of my mind.) From the Jews I five times have received forty lashes all but one. Three times I have been beaten with Roman rods, once I have been stoned, three times I have been shipwrecked, once for full four and twenty hours I was floating on the open sea.read more.
I have served Him by frequent travelling, amid dangers in crossing rivers, dangers from robbers; dangers from my own countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles; dangers in the city, dangers in the Desert, dangers by sea, dangers from spies in our midst; with labour and toil, with many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, in frequent fastings, in cold, and with insufficient clothing. And besides other things, which I pass over, there is that which presses on me daily--my anxiety for all the Churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led astray into sin, and I am not aflame with indignation? If boast I must, it shall be of things which display my weakness. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ--He who is blessed throughout the Ages--knows that I am speaking the truth. In Damascus the governor under King Aretas kept guards at the gates of the city in order to apprehend me, but through an opening in the wall I was let down in a basket, and so escaped his hands.

From this time onward let no one trouble me; for, as for me, I bear, branded on my body, the scars of Jesus as my Master.

These rules have indeed an appearance of wisdom where self-imposed worship exists, and an affectation of humility and an ascetic severity. But not one of them is of any value in combating the indulgence of our lower natures.

Beware of 'the dogs,' the bad workmen, the self-mutilators. For we are the true circumcision--we who render to God a spiritual worship and make our boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in outward ceremonies:

If you have died with Christ and have escaped from the world's rudimentary notions, why, as though your life still belonged to the world, do you submit to such precepts as "Do not handle this;" "Do not taste that;" "Do not touch that other thing" -- referring to things which are all intended to be used up and perish--in obedience to mere human injunctions and teachings?

Now the Spirit expressly declares that in later times some will fall away from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and the teachings of demons; through the hypocrisy of men who teach falsely and have their own consciences seared as with a hot iron; forbidding people to marry, and insisting on abstinence from foods which God has created to be partaken of, with thankfulness, by those who believe and have a clear knowledge of the truth.read more.
For everything that God has created is good, and nothing is to be cast aside, if only it is received with thanksgiving. For it is made holy by the word of God and by prayer.