Blogging BCM: What Is Sanctification?

Last night Tim spoke about sanctification. For me, this message was powerful and was something I really needed to hear. Perhaps the greatest thing Tim said that needs to remain a challenge to all of us was:

Maybe the world is satisfying you more than God is.

How often do we let the things of the world satisfy us more than the Creator who created us. I felt this message and this challenge specifically brought our semester focused on worldliness to a great close. We must not let the things of this world satisfy us more than our God. Today I want to look at sanctification and its implications for moving away from the satisfactions of this world to being satisfied only and truly in Jesus Christ.

Sanctification is a term referred to greatly in Scripture. 1 Thessalonians even goes as far to say in chapter 4, "For this is the will of God, your sanctification." We must realize that it is God's will for us to be sanctified. When Christ enters our lives through the process known as regeneration, we are made anew and begin the process of sanctification. It is this process that requires us to move away from the things we do that please this world, to only those things that will please God. Tim shared a great verse from Romans 6 last night that talks about this process:

I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Once we are in Christ, we no longer are regarded as sons of lawlessness (1 John 3:4), but sons of obedience (Romans 16:19, 2 Corinthians 7:15, 1 Peter 1:22). So therefore we must present our members as slaves to righteousness. Now what does it mean here by our members? The Greek word for members means our bodies. We are to give our bodies over to be slaves of righteousness. Seeking to use our bodies for that which glorifies God, leading to our sanctification.

Throughout our walk as Christians, we will go through the long process of sanctification. We must realize that this is a long process. We will not be fully sanctified over night. We will make mistakes. It is in this that we understand that it is not us who can sanctify ourselves, but it is the process of the Holy Spirit, through the power and work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. In His high priestly prayer recorded in John 17, Jesus Christ cried out to God:

They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

It is in these verses that we see a true picture of sanctification. It is here we see that Christ calls us to not be of this world, and to not be satisfied by the things that this world will offer, but to be satisfied in the One True God. It is here that we see how we are sanctified. We are sanctified in truth, which is the Word of God. We must constantly dive into and remain in the Word of God for the process of sanctification to abound in our lives. Ultimately though, these verses show us that Christ came to be consecrated, to die, that we may be sanctified in His truth. We ultimately find our sanctification at the cross, where as I have said in previous blog posts, we see the depraved creatures we truly are and see our full need for Christ as Savior in our lives. It is when we read these verses, we see that Christ came and died on the cross that we might be sanctified. That we might move away from the pleasures and grips that this world offers us and grab on to God. It is when we realize and move towards this fact that we move closer and closer to God in Christ through the process of sanctification.

Things to focus on in your daily devotions:

1. Study John 17 and Romans 6.

2. In what ways do you need to stop satisfying this world and start satisfying God?

3. Dwell on the things God has done in your life and the things, through His power in the process of sanctification, he has enabled you to let go of.

As always, if you need to talk or have more questions regarding sanctification or worldliness, do not hesitate to talk to Tim or myself.