Why bother with sanctification?

So you have been rescued, saved!

And then what?

Does God simply ask us to live tidy lives and be polite?

Hardly! He invites us to join Him in the effort. He even offers us inner power and guidance in the Person of the Holy Spirit.

A simple definition of sanctification is “Learning to live and love as Jesus did.”

The very desire for sanctification and the power to work through it comes from God. It is powered by the Holy Spirit who lives in us from the moment we are saved.  It is not self-improvement. It is not self-affirmation, self-aggrandizement or self-realization. It is willing cooperation with the Holy Spirit—sovereign God living in us to help accomplish His loving purposes in us and through us here on earth.

Scripture tells us that when we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit moves into us.

And Paul says:

“He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” (1 Corinthians 6:19, NKJV)

There is training. There is struggle. There is exhaustion, and there is rest. And there is more struggle and work and even danger. But lives are at stake, and we have the enormous privilege of joining Jesus in the rescue—at His request and under His direction.

Are you willing to join in, behind enemy lines, where we are serving the King of Kings who has come to rescue His own?

Why bother with sanctification? Because Jesus tells us to, and because every other effort in life is tame beyond words.

In Christ,

Pastor George