Short note on sanctification

[StriperAddict]

The key to understanding sanctification.
By Dan Camp

The key is embracing what Jesus did, past tense, as in, He sanctified us!

A remodeller saw some activity and dropped by an old-looking house. The owner welcomed him inside and introduced him to his architect, his banker, and the head of his new management company. The renovator was astounded at the incredible and totally new insides of the home - new everything! He noticed a few things being finished, and offered his compliments. "But," he said, "the outside looks like (junk)!," to which the banker responded, "Oh, don't worry! We'll get around to that."

New Heart, New Life, New Spirit, New Identity, New Creation, New Person, New Father, New family, New Source, New Manager - I'm just getting warmed up!

Justification is by Grace thru Faith.
Big surprise, so is sanctification -
not by works, but by Christ living in us!

 

[gordon 2]

This is one way of looking at it. There are so many ways people and institutions have tried to explain sanctification. In my case, I wish that I could have embraced the significance of what Jesus did and that I could have claimed myself sanctified for it with the intellectual knowledge of the Cross.

Intellectually I ever knew, from childhood, that God loved me and you and was just. But that I could have loved Him and you, as I now understand God intends for us, with intellectual knowledge that Jesus died on the cross, this was a challenge for me and in this paradigmn I suppose I was no different that most humans that ever walked the earth who had faith in God.

It was that when I followed Jesus, and not so unlike the child who has few intellectual wits, it was that through the Holy Spirit that Christ ministered to me as the living risen God that a new life was born to me. The knowledge that my Lord had died unjustly to sanctify me was of dimmed lights compare to the new day's light when he touched me because he loved me and you as good friends care to be next to each other--independent of the cross.

The gift, or the grace in my life was Him, or God through the Holy Spirit ministering our Christ risen, alive, vital, active and allied in friendship with me. Like Zachaeus my whole world was born again for this. Before this my heart was not a new heart. I was not a new heart and a renewed creation. Christ on the cross was not unlike the sacrifice two of my uncles had made as volunteer soldiers fighting with the allies in Europe in the 2WW or of my parents who's life sufferings were just part and parcel of their love for 8 children-- such was my intellectual power regards the cross.

Then one day I sat and put my intellectual knowledge away, and just sat there but not with intellectual terms. Knowing intellectually that there was a "place" where others spoke and lived with sure and heavenly authority, but unable to attain it by myself so far, my efforts not sufficient and even knowing then as I do today the legalities of the cross, I ventured to my local church and attended bible study, but not with my intellect, but with my heart and the "place" was handed to me as the kingdom.

And I sat in Church, but not with my intellect, but with my heart ( what was of it) and with his heart( not his intellect) and through the Holy Spirit Christ sat next to me and he came home with me and since then we visit each other like two friends forever meant to be.

At what place in my pilgrimages I was sanctified I will leave to the intellectuals? At what place I loved God with His kind of love. Due His grace to me through the Holy Spirit of the living God there is a union no man can undo or cut up as if God's love is matched for the powers of the intellect.

So loving brother, not to be contrary, the key for me to sanctification might be that it was not what God did so much as what God does-- and I think He likes to fellowship as a lover... such is his doing.

The gift at Pentecost might be a greater item than the cross for it is for this gift that the Cross is witness to the world who understands it and that equally through the Holy Spirit a man/woman of the world can eventually come to witness the heavenly as part of living his/her life.

The Cross is made essential by The Resurrection. It demands a way that we love our enemy and minister of Him so He ministers to a broken world which we are at odds with and yet ventured in it with safety, --- we not loosing ourselves to it.

The Cross can be ministered to the world and though many will make intelligent sign of it, not all will stand at the foot of it with hope intact for long. Some will chose old roads to travel away from it. What is the Cross and Sanctification to them? Can they be restored with the human intellect which deadened their hopes?

Maybe.

 

[gordon 2]

Why would a man of the world identify with the cross? Well he would need some faith. He would have to be a believer to some degree to begin with. Because the cross is a clash between sin and God. Sin is plainly seen to a worldly man, and God not seen must be perceived by faith. That is then that for the cross one perceives sin in one's self and the existence that surrounds the self and the justice and innocence of God, sold for a small sum to the surrounding forces of evil which result is Christ( God) on the cross. Seen to the man of the world by faith it is them that God the father gives to Jesus-- and they are the people of faith who are lost.


Initially in the cross in my view "Things are hidden temporarily only as a means of revelation."Mark 4:22 So the cross by itself is not our sanctification. Rather, our sanctification is when the Spirit of Jesus "explains everything fully"Mark 4:34 and we chose to walk in that fullness. For me it is truth that Christ died for the sins of the world in me and about me, but it is the encounter with Him that purged sin from my will and made me to view life totally anew and Jesus became the "explainer" or teacher of everything fully! concerning life... a new fuller life than from a simple faith. At this point I might consider being a vessel sanctified...???

 

[StriperAddict]

I don't believe intellect and faith are opposites unless the union message of the cross gets muddied in our thinking. This can happen often, call it my (our) faithlessness,
But at that point aren't we directed to consider the faithfulness of God?
I view sanctification in 2 parts,
First, the humble understanding of a work done on our behalf whereby God calls us those who are "set apart", made new, God's kids, all a free gift,
... for the purpose of bearing fruit (Love, joy, peace, etc., the fruit of His life within us, the Indwelling Christ) and by that Indwelling Life we are ...
2nd: Becoming sanctified in behavior. The renewing of our mind being a byproduct of the Indwelling Life, not a burden to bear, or even a work to perform,
Except that which comes from the gift of faith.

We are of necessity being changed in our beliefs to see that we are complete in Christ, and totally dependant on His ife within to have us enjoy the walk of faith. In my opnion a good dose of grace, love & faith make for intelligent catalysts for good works going forward, works which God prepared in advance for us to discover.
Win - win, No?

 

[gordon 2]

Yes. Your view is very interesting. Thanks.

 

[StriperAddict]

Yes. Your view is very interesting. Thanks.

We are blessed beyond what our eyes see brother!
Thank God for his Indescribable gift ??