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Sanctification
Beware of preaching
Sanctification without knowing Jesus; we are saved and sanctified in order
that we might know Him.
"But
of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1
Corinthians 1:30). Jesus Christ is all these, they are not things He works
out apart from Himself.
We cannot earn things from
God, we can only take what is given us. Salvation, sanctification, eternal
life, are all gifts wrought out in us through the Atonement. The question
is, am I working out what God works in?
It is quite true to say
"I can’t live a holy life"; but you can decide to let Jesus
make you holy. "I can’t do away with my past"; but you can
decide to let Jesus do away with it. That is the issue to push.
We use the word
"consecration" before sanctification, it should be used after
sanctification. The fundamental meaning of consecration is the separating
of a holy thing to God, not the separating of an un-holy thing to be made
holy.
". . . present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,"
says the apostle Paul. You cannot separate to God what God has not
purified.
If I make personal holiness a
cause instead of an effect I become shallow, no matter how profound I
seem. It means I am far more concerned about being speckless than about
being real; far more concerned about keeping my garments white than about
being devoted to Jesus Christ.
The idea that I grow holy as
I go on is foreign to the New Testament. There must have been a place
where I was identified with the death of Jesus: "I
have been crucified with Christ . . ." That is the
meaning of sanctification. Then I grow on holiness.
Jesus Christ can make my
disposition as pure as His own. That is the claim of the Gospel.
The saints have gone to
sleep, "Thank God, I am saved and sanctified, it is all right
now": you are simply in the right place to maintain the life which is
going to confront the world and never be subdued by the world.
"Now I am sanctified the
world has no attraction for me." But remember, the world is what the
Holy Spirit sees, not what you see. It is not gross sins that are the
attraction, but things that are part of God’s creation, things "in
the land of Canaan," they creep in gradually and you begin
to think according to pagan standards and only in a crisis realize you
have not been standing with God.
God has staked His reputation
on the work of Jesus Christ in the souls of the men and women whom He has
saved and sanctified.
If we are to be of any use to
God in facing present-day problems we must be prepared to run the
sanctification-metaphysic for all it is worth.
The great fever in people’s
blood to-day is, "Do something"; "Be practical." The
great need is for the one who is un-practical enough to get down to the
heart of the matter, viz., personal sanctification. Practical work not
based on an understanding of what sanctification means is simply beating
the air.
The test of sanctification is
not our talk about holiness and singing pious hymns; but, what are we like
where no one sees us? with those who know us best?
It is perilously possible to
credit God with all our mean little prejudices even after we are
sanctified.
Pious talk paralyses the
power to live piously, the energy of the life goes into the talk—sanctimonious
instead of sanctified. Unless your mind is free from jealousy, envy,
spite, your pious words only increase your hypocrisy.
Beware of sentimentality; it
means something has been aroused in me that I don’t intend to work out.
Wherever there is true
teaching of the Gospel there will be both salvation and sanctification
taking place.
If you are called to preach,
God will put you through "mills" that are not meant for you
personally, He is making you suitable bread to nourish other lives. It is
after sanctification you are put through these things.
If I exalt Sanctification, I
preach people into despair; but if I lift up Jesus Christ, people learn
the way to be made holy. "For I determined
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified"
(1 Corinthians 2:2).
It is a great snare to think
that when you are sanctified you cannot make mistakes; you can make
mistakes so irreparably terrible that the only safeguard is to "walk
in the light, as He is in the light."
When you come under the
searchlight of God after sanctification, you realize much more keenly what
sin is than ever you could have done before.
The deliverances of God are
not what the saint delights in, but in the fact that God delivered
him; not in the fact that he is sanctified, but that God sanctified
him; the whole attention of the mind is on God
We are saved and sanctified
not for service, but to be absolutely Jesus Christ’s, the consuming
passion of the life is for Him.
Never try to build
sanctification on an unconfessed sin, on a duty left undone; confess the
wrong, do what you ought to have done, then God will clear away all the
hyper-conscientious rubbish.
In sanctification it has to
be a valediction once and for ever to confidence in everyone and
everything but God.
You can always test the worth
of your sanctification. If there is the slightest trace of self-conscious
superiority about it, it has never touched the fringe of the garment of
Christ.
"I lay down
My life," said Jesus; "I lay
it down of Myself." If you are sanctified, you will do the
same. It has nothing to do with "Deeper Death to Self," it has
to do with the glorious fact that I have a self, a personality, that I can
sacrifice with glad alacrity to Jesus every day I live.
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Sanctification