“And for their sakes I sanctify myself,
that they might also be sanctified through the truth.” – John 17:19
This week we march on a little further down the path. The walk from sinner to saint, from birth to
death; using the scriptures as our guide.
Up to this point, we have walked through: first birth, committed sin,
and conviction to repentance. Before we
wade into sanctification, I want to take a moment to recap, because, like a
physical aliment, diagnosing the sickness is essential if one wishes to find the
cure.
When you are born into this world, you are born with a desire to
disobey God. This desire has been passed
down since the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden. As we discussed in the “first birth” part of
the series; every single human being is born into this world with this sinful
(carnal) nature. As you live your very
soon fall into committed sin. This is
the decision to disobey God. The analogy
was given about the little boy eating cookies.
He wants to eat cookies (bad for him), mom told him not to eat cookies,
he chooses to disobey mom and eats the cookies.
There is both the desire towards something that is against mom’s rule
and the choice to disobey mom’s rule. In
this basic, somewhat comical analogy, we see the whole of sin that currently
plagues mankind. However, instead of
spoiling your dinner, the sin in your life will spoil far more than your dinner. If left alone it will rot away the joy, love,
peace, and contentment in your life, and then send you to hell at the end of
your life. “The wages of sin is death.”
Repentance deals with committed sin. Long has God made provision to cleanse the
sins that man commit against him; His grace and mercy has extended and
continues to extend, to those hearts who earnestly seek after atonement for the
wrong they have done. Had Jesus Christ
never set foot on this earth, there would still be a way to atone for the sins
you commit. However, as Jesus plainly
tells us, God did not intend for us to remain in sin. He wanted to redeem us from ALL iniquity. He wanted to bring us back to full fellowship
with the Father. Repentance cannot do
this, only the blood of Christ can accomplish this when you are “baptized into
His death” thereby resurrected unto knew life, which will be witnessed to your
heart by the Holy Ghost. This Holy Ghost
will now show itself to you as an eternal “keeping agent” to ever guide you
along the way of holiness contrary to the way of sin and self as long as you so
submit to it (more on this next week).
This is sanctification, and sanctification gets rid of that pesky carnal
nature that drives you to sin. There is
a cleansing, a purging, and a full eradication of the carnal nature in your
life. It does not take you out of the
world but it “keeps you from the evil of
the world.” When you are birthed
into the experience of sanctification, all the clubs, bars, and booze suddenly
doesn’t disappear, but the desire for the clubs, bars, and booze will disappear
(I use this as a harsh example to communicate a point, sin is far more than
what you can see). Your heart changes,
therefore, your actions/reactions change.
You go from fighting a two front warfare to a one front warfare (to
borrow from Keith Drury). By this I
mean, in times past you had to battle the devil within, and temptation
without. When you’re sanctified, you
only have to battle temptation without and you get to do so with the power of
Jesus Christ within! Praise God! Each day you lean on the Lord, and he wins
the battles and he gets the glory! He is
glorified, you are sanctified, and the old man of sin is no more. It is a beautiful arrangement.
So, has your path lead you to sanctification? If not, next week, through the scriptures, we
will discuss how to enter into an experience of sanctification.
