Sanctification

Sanctification

Our most innocent moment in life is when we are born.  At our birth, all that we are acquainted with is the One who breathed life into us and intimacy with our Mother – we’ve yet to be tainted by anything that the world may send our way…  Since the time of Adam and Eve, we are born into a fallen state, which is why Jesus said that we must be born again.  This is very apparent when we observe our children, as wonderful as they can be.  Jesus is the last Adam who has redeemed us from our fallen state if we choose to be born again by His Spirit.  I might write more about this another time, but all of creation is waiting for us to represent our Father and live the redeemed life, because Jesus has redeemed the entire world.  However, He gave the dominion back to us that we had relinquished to Satan in the garden, and He has left it up to us to believe Him, follow Him, represent Him and resurrect all that has fallen, by the power of His Spirit living in us.

Sanctification is what I am writing about today, and the revelation of the fact that it should be a joy to be sanctified.  We get to become like Jesus – not when we die, but in this life!  If we can’t be free from sin until we die, then death has become our savior instead of Jesus!  Jesus laid down His divinity and did all that He did as the son of man relying upon the same Holy Spirit whom He has sent to live in us.  He paid the ultimate price for us to never utter the words “that was Jesus, not me”, or “well, I’m not Jesus”.  Jesus’ life was an example to us of what our lives can look like if we submit to our Father and His will and leading.  This is how we resist the devil – we submit to our Father.  It’s a one-step program!  James 4:7 says “Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you”.  We don’t resist the devil in our own strength.  When we are submitted to God, the devil is resisted automatically, and we don’t even need to give him any attention.  In fact, Satan loves attention, and he is actually enlivened the more we give him attention and focus on him.  Father desires all of our affection and attention, and if He is for us it doesn’t matter who is against us!  I say all this because it pertains to our sanctification process.  We must be completely submitted and sold-out to God.

If we rest in the Lord and do all that we do from rest in Him, sanctification can be a joy.  It’s God doing the sanctifying, so all we need to do is spend time with Him and rest in Him.  Anything else is striving from our own strength.  If we are in Him, then we will do from our being, rather than be from our doing.  If you’re like me, you may get frustrated and impatient with the sanctification process.  We all want to be like Jesus right now!  I realize though that this frustration can come from a place of striving.  I don’t know why some people seem to be sanctified more quickly than others, but God wants to use every step in our sanctification to bring Him glory and reveal His goodness to others.  That’s a joyful thing!  As we testify to others about how God has transformed us, He uses it to draw them to Him.

God is not at all surprised by our mistakes, and if we acknowledge them, they exist no more.  It’s only when we hang on to them and allow guilt, shame and condemnation from the enemy to rule our minds that we distance ourselves from our Father.  This is why we are to be renewed in the spirit of our minds daily.  He is right there desiring for us to be fully convinced that we are forgiven, righteous and empowered by His grace to have victory over our failures and to be more and more sanctified as we keep our eyes fixed on Him.  Beating ourselves up over our failures becomes very self-focused and counter-productive to what Father desires to do in our hearts.  If He doesn’t see us that way, then neither should we.  In fact, it’s when we spend time with Him that we begin to see ourselves the way He does and He is able to transform our hearts into hearts of love and sanctify us.  We then have Father’s love in our hearts and are able to walk like Jesus and truly love those in the world around us.  Our sanctified hearts allow us to feel the same love for people that our Father does.  So I hope that we can all learn together how to simply enjoy the sanctification process and truly be joyful in every victory, as well as every learning experience(failure) – trusting and knowing that He is transforming us into His image and likeness of love.