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Author
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Topic: Self-sanctification
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Carol Swenson
Admin
Member # 6929
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posted
"This is the will of God, even your sanctification" (1Thess. 4:3).
The Death Side. In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on the life side. Many of us spend so much time in the place of death that we get sepulchral. There is always a battle royal before sanctification, always something that tugs with resentment against the demands of Jesus Christ. Immediately the Spirit of God begins to show us what sanctification means, the struggle begins. "If any man come to Me and hate not... his own life, he cannot be My disciple."
The Spirit of God in the process of sanctification will strip me until I am nothing but "myself," that is the place of death. Am I willing to be "myself," and nothing more—no friends, no father, no brother, no self-interest—simply ready for death? That is the condition of sanctification. No wonder Jesus said: "I came not to send peace, but a sword." This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us faint. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus on this point. "But it is so stern," we say; "He cannot wish me to do that." Our Lord is stern; and He does wish us to do that.
Am I willing to reduce myself simply to "me," determinedly to strip myself of all my friends think of me, of all I think of myself, and to hand that simple naked self over to God? Immediately I am, He will sanctify me wholly, and my life will be free from earnestness in connection with everything but God.
When I pray—"Lord, show me what sanctification means for me," He will show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus Christ puts into me: it is Himself in me 1Cor. 1:30).
My Utmost for His Highest.
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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newnature
Advanced Member
Member # 8611
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posted
Motivation is the key component when it comes to self-sanctification. Do we have a self-sanctification in the positive sense of separating ourselves from those things we know that are not good for us or not good for others, not in order to merit any more righteousness before God through that performance, but in light of all that God has already made us to be IN Christ (Our new identity). On the opposite end of that self-sanctification spectrum, we have those who suppose that their behavior is the source of their right standing with God, that is self-sanctification negatively. They suppose that becoming more righteous in practice will make them more righteous in God’s sight, faulty thinking on their part, Paul called it foolish. It will not gain them Heaven, it will not help them avoid the second death. Paul lets us know that in the book of Romans that God did not make Heaven for good people, God made Heaven for sinners who are justified freely by God’s grace. Paul did not set himself apart in order to gain a greater righteousness before God through his performance, but that he made his life-style (to the best he could) conform to who God had already made him to be in his sanctified or set-apart position being joined to Christ that he might more affectively reach others. That was Paul’s key motivation; there is a vast difference in those two motivations. Setting oneself apart for holiness is one thing, setting oneself apart because of the holy standing God has already given that individual in Christ is something altogether different.
God’s Reconciliation of Man, read more about it at http://godsreconciliation.blogspot.com/
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God’s Reconciliation of Man, read more about it at http://godsreconciliation.blogspot.com/
Posts: 21 | From: In the mountains of Oregon | Registered: Apr 2011
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