What We Believe #8 – Sanctification
3-Minute Video Version: https://fb.watch/g8mrK3Lkyf/
So you’ve become a Christ follower. You’re being changed from the inside out.
“Sanctification” is a big umbrella term that describes this process of becoming like Christ progressively. The Alliance is helpfully updating its Statement of Faith on sanctification, currently:
“It is the will of God that through the indwelling Christ (Colossians 1:27) each believer be sanctified wholly (1 Thessalonians 5:23), being separated from sin, fully dedicated to God (Romans 6:13), and filled with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), thereby receiving power for holy living and effective service (Acts 1:8). Positional sanctification accompanies conversion while experiential sanctification follows and is both a decisive point of complete surrender (Romans 12:1) and a progressive experience (Galatians 5:16, 25) through which Christ is formed in the life of the believer by the Spirit (Galatians 4:19, Romans 6:1-14).”
You are in Christ, and Christ is in you, and Christ wants to live his life out through you.
Positionally, you already have everything in Christ. You “have been made holy” (Hebrews 10:10) – though practically you might not be acting very holy. And experientially you are called to “be holy in all you do” (1 Peter 1:15).
You may still struggle against sin, doing the very things you don’t want to do. Your relationship with God may always be up and down. You need God’s empowering to be and do what God wants you to be and do.
A.W. Tozer said, “Every man or woman is as close to God as they want to be; they are as holy and as full of the Spirit as they will to be.” You come to a decisive point of complete surrender to God.
Separate yourself from all sin. Repent thoroughly. Turn away from anything ungodly. Put away old selfish desires and ways. Leave them all at the cross.
Dedicate yourself totally to God. Offer your thoughts, attitudes, actions. Surrender your mind, will, emotions. Present your body, hands, feet. Give everything to God.
Ask Jesus to fill you with the Holy Spirit. “You do not have because you do not ask God” (James 4:2). Reach out and take the gift of the fullness of the Spirit that Jesus gives you. Faith takes. Faith receives. Say “thank you” to God.
Remain, live, abide in Jesus. “I need. I want. I confess. I surrender. I ask. I receive. I take. I thank. I live.”
Yield control of your life over to God. Do it the first time. Do it continually. Be sanctified wholly.
~ Pastor Dave
