Category: Sanctification

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Panics

Fear Is Not a Fruit of the Holy Spirit

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.

Josh. 1:9

Fear is an overwhelming anxiety and worry that immobilizes our spirits into believing that our circumstances are bigger than God’s provision.  Giving into fear is failing to consider that God is adequate for our needs and can overcome our difficulties. Fearful feelings is not the same thing as the sin of unbelief. One may feel extremely fearful, yet choose to stand on God’s promises, rather than sink into the pit of despair.

It is the most natural thing in the world to be scared, and the clearest evidence that God’s grace is at work in our hearts is when we do not get into panics.

Oswald Chambers, The Shadow of an Agony (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1934), 55.

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Stop Pushin’ It

Stop Trying to Live the Christian Life by Your Own Strength

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Col. 1:29

We come to Christ by faith. We believe that the finished work of Christ on the Cross was for us. Christ’s death saves us from the penalty of our sin, his burial delivers us from the power of sin, and his raising to life again overcomes the presence of sin. We are free indeed.

Yet, we continue in the Christian life struggling and striving to live a life of holiness. Frustrated, we read the New Testament’s instructions for Christian living and find them impossible to obey. We want to quit, it’s all too much and too hard in a world gone mad.

Yet, God has something better for us. He wants us to trust his Son: that very Son who lives in us by the power of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 2:20). The Lord never intended for us to live the Christian life in our own strength. God’s intention: allow Christ to live the Christian life in and through us (Col. 2:6). By faith, we trust the only one who has ever successfully lived the Christian life to empower us to say, “no,” to sin and “yes,” to righteousness (Titus 2:12).

How stupid it would be to buy a car with a powerful engine under the hood and then to spend the rest of your days pushing it! Thwarted and exhausted, you would wish to discard it as a useless thing! Yet to some of you who are Christians, this may be God’s word to your heart.

When God redeemed you through the precious blood of His dear Son, He placed, in the language of my illustration, a powerful engine under the hood–nothing less than the resurrection life of God the Son, made over to you in the person of God the Holy Spirit. Then stop pushing! Step in and switch on and expose every hill of circumstance, of opportunity, of temptation, of perplexity–no matter how threatening–to the divine energy that is available.

Major Ian Thomas, The Saving Life of Christ/The Mystery of Godliness (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 22.

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Don’t Believe Everything You Think

Transformation of the Mind

And so, dear brothers, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Rom. 12:1-2 NLT

My Paraphrase of Romans 12:1-2:

Based on the fact that God has done so much for us in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, we should give ourselves wholly to God. By giving ourselves wholly to God, we worship. Our worship blesses God’s heart and our heart devotion replaces Temple ritual. We are to stop thinking like the world does assuming that God does not care about our needs or supernaturally acts in our personal lives. The world believes that only what can be seen is reality. The spirit of the world is embodied in the love of money, hunger for unbridled sex, and thirst for power. Don’t believe the way the world does, but change the way you think. As you change the way you think, you will mature and take on Christ’s character. As you grow up in Christ, you will know God’s heart and then you will be able to do exactly what God wants.

Commentary:

Romans 12:1-2 exhorts us not to entertain evil thoughts or allow our minds to become passive. The Apostle Paul reminds us that our reasoning processes are fallen and that they must be guarded. If our thoughts are not filtered by Holy Spirit discernment, Satan will use our minds to delude us and misled us into error. This error is not just about doctrine, but also concerns our everyday choices and life decisions. In other words, don’t believe everything you think, but allow the Word of God and the Spirit of God to transform all your thought processes.

Never submit to the tyrannous idea that you cannot look after your mind; you can. If a man lets his garden alone it very soon ceases to be a garden; and if a saint lets his mind alone it will soon become a rubbish heap for Satan to make use of. Read the terrible things the New Testament says will grow in the mind of a saint if he does not look after it. We have to rouse ourselves up to think, to bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (rv). Never pray about evil thoughts, it will fix them in the mind.

Oswald Chambers, The Moral Foundation of Life : A Series of Talks on the Ethical Principles of the Christian Life (Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996, c1966).

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Abounding Abundant Life

Life and Life More Abundantly

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10:10

Eternal life is life and life more abundantly—it is being alive in the realm where God lives (John 10:10). Life is walking with God in unending communion, enjoying his unlimited blessing, experiencing his unconditional love, and receiving his undeserved grace. The eternal life that Christ offers is entire salvation of the whole person including conversion, new birth, heart transformation, and emotional healing.

Abundant life is overflowing fullness, the unsurpassed quality of the life of Christ active in us. Paul uses the terms “all” and “every” to describe the abounding grace that provides abundant life (2 Cor. 9:8). As we abide in Christ, his life increases more and more enabling us to overcome sin, live the Christian life, and enter in the conscious, constant presence of Christ. The abundant life is the normal Christian life described in the New Testament.

Abounding life is just the fullness of life in Christ, made possible by His death and resurrection, and made actual by the indwelling and infilling of the Holy Spirit.

For, “The Christ, who dying did a work for us, now lives to do a work in us.” However, many believers never experience the joy and fulfillment that can now be their possession in Christ.

There can be a relationship without fellowship: there can be life without health: there can be privilege without enjoyment. One may war and not win, may serve and yet not succeed, may try and yet not triumph; and the difference throughout is just the difference between possession of eternal life and the experience of abounding life . . . .

All quotes from Graham Scroggie, “Abounding Life,” Daily Thoughts From Keswick: A Year’s Daily Readings, ed., Herbert F. Stevenson (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980), 135.

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Grace: Empowerment to Live the Christian Life

Empowering Grace

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thes. 5:23

Empowering grace is Jesus enabling us to overcome temptation, make righteousness right choices, and obey the commands of our heavenly Father. Grace makes it possible for us to do “the righteous requirements of the Law” (Rom. 8:3-4), be a conduit of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), and serve as Christ’s witness in the world (Acts 1:8).

The meaning of sanctification is that the Son of God is formed in us (Galatians 4:19); then our human nature has to be transfigured by His indwelling life, and this is where our action comes in. We have to put on the new man in accordance with the life of the Son of God in us.

If we refuse to be sanctified, there is no possibility of the Son of God being manifested in us, because we have prevented our lives being turned into a Bethlehem; we have not allowed the Spirit of God to bring forth the Son of God in us.

Oswald Chambers, Our Brilliant Heritage (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996), 73.

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Grace: Freedom Not to Sin

Power to Say, “No,” to Ungodliness and, “Yes,” to Righteousness

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age . . . .

Titus 2:11-12

Grace is not the freedom to sin, but the freedom not to sin. Grace is God’s heart extending itself towards us as he initiates in us the ability to overcome our weaknesses, failures, and inadequacies. The foremost characteristic of living by grace is trust in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ: the Cross forgives our past sin through Christ’s death, puts away our present sin through Christ’s burial and triumphs over future sin through Christ’s resurrection. Grace is not an abstraction, but Jesus living his life in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

To be in Christ—that is redemption; but for Christ to be in you—that is sanctification! To be in Christ—that makes you fit for heaven; but for Christ to be in you—that makes you fit for earth! To be in Christ—that changes your destination; but for Christ to be in you—that changes your destiny! The one makes heaven your home—the other makes this world His workshop.

Major W. Ian Thomas, The Saving Life of Christ/The Mystery of Godliness (Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 1988), 22.

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Grace: Embodied in a Person

Grace Is Not a Thing, But Jesus Christ Himself

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

2 Cor. 9:8

Sanctifying grace is Jesus being the desire, ability, and power in us to respond to every life situation according to the will of God. Jesus is our desire for he works in us a hunger for holiness. Jesus is our ability for he enables us to make godly decisions and choices. Jesus is our power for he strengthens us to overcome the world, the flesh, sin, death, and the devil. Grace is the person, Jesus, living his life in and through us empowering us to live a righteous and holy life (2 Cor. 9:8, 2 Cor. 12:1-10, Titus 2:11-14).

The sanctification of the Bible never fixes you on the fact that you are delivered from sin: it fixes you on the One who is Sanctification. Sanctification is not something Jesus Christ gives me, it is Himself in me.

Oswald Chambers, God’s Workmanship (Hants, UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996), 48.


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Abound in Good Works . . .

. . . by Trusting Christ’s Enabling Grace.

He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

Titus 2:14 NRSV

Good works cannot produce or achieve right standing before God. However, a faith-filled salvation will produce many good works. Good works are the fruit of salvation, not its cause or basis. Good works flow from Christ’s grace enabling us to say, “yes,” to God and, “no,” to ungodliness.

Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. Good works can be described as the fruit of faith. A biblical expectation of redemption is living in a godly manner. There is no place in the Christian life for claiming a “born from above” experience while giving no evidence of a changed life. A changed life is a life that allows Christ to live in and through us (1 John 4:9).

Good works are not produced by the Christian, but good works are borne in the life of the Christian by the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). We are fruit-bearers not fruit-producers: enabling grace works out the life of Christ in us.

Good works, or deeds, display to the world the changed heart that Christ has created (Matt. 7:15-20). Faith in the finished work of Christ expresses itself in deeds done for God and others. Therefore, good works are the fruit of faith, they follow after justification, they are evidence of a changed heart, and therefore flow from a life changed by the Cross.

The biblical call to endure in faith and obedience is a call to trust the Christ-purchased, empowering grace of God. God’s grace is first the gift of pardon and imputed righteousness; then it is the gift of power to fight the good fight and to overflow in good deeds. Christ died to purchase both redeeming pardon and transforming power: “[Christ] gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14).

Therefore, all our ability to endure to the end in good works is a gift of grace. This is what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:8: “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” Grace abounds to us so that we may abound in good works. It is our work, yes, but enabled by his grace.

John Piper, The Roots of Endurance (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2002), 27.

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Change From Within

Holy Spirit Penetration

He is the Holy Spirit , who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.

John 14:17

Our theme for the week has been change: the need for personal change, the possibility of real change, the availability of change at the foot of the Cross. Today, we acknowledge that change can happen in our lives: the persistent sins can stop, the personality struggles can cease, and the problematic wounds can be healed. Change comes not because we believe in ourselves more or that we are try harder or that we are more sincere.  Real change happens in our innermost beings because there is a Person and that Person can enter our hearts, forgive our sins, soften our wills, and give us new life. That Person is the Holy Spirit, he is THE true change agent.

There is a sense in which we may say that the teaching ministry of Jesus had proved a failure. Several times he had urged his disciples to humble themselves like a little child, but Simon Peter remained proud and self-confident. Often he had told them to love one another, but even John seems to have deserved his nickname ‘son of thunder’ to the end.

Yet when you read Peter’s first letter you cannot fail to notice its references to humility, and John’s letters are full of love. What made the difference? The Holy Spirit. Jesus taught them to be humble and loving; but neither quality appeared in their lives until the Holy Spirit entered their personality and began to change them from within.

John Stott, Basic Christianity, Revised (London: IVP, 1971), 100.

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Compromise or Hardness of Heart: Is That Our Only Choice?

God is Love and Holiness

Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.

Eph. 4:15 NLT

We tend to cast God in our own image. We can only experience one thought, one feeling, or carry out one act at a time (Psalm 121). We often assume that since we are limited than God must be so constrained. However, God can be merciful and holy at the same time (Exodus 34:6-7). He can be gracious and righteous simultaneously. The Lord can be loving and performing judgment in the same act.

Believers, and non-Christians, tend to emphasize one character attribute of God over and against his other qualities. We focus on love while ignoring to need to walk in the Spirit and obey the clear dictates of scripture (Gal. 5:16). Or, we emphasize the commands of God without acknowledging the Lord’s graciousness that enables us to obey. However, this either/or kind of Christian is a false dichotomy. Love without compassion or righteousness without mercy are not our only choices.

As Christ lives in us, we trust his Holy Spirit to make Christ known in and through us. As we keep in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:24-25), we will understand when to have compassion on the hurting and when to take a stand on God’s law. As believers, there is no need to compromise Christian conviction and no requirement to be hard hearted enforcers of God’s law. We can act in love and holiness at the same time because a loving and holy God lives in us (John 16:12-14).

If we stress the love of God without the holiness of God, it turns out only to be compromise. But if we stress the holiness of God without the love of God, we practice something that is hard and lacks beauty. And it is important to show forth beauty before a lost world and a lost generation. All too often young people have not been wrong in saying that the church is ugly. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we are called upon to show to a watching world and to our own young people that the church is something beautiful.

Several years ago I wrestled with the question of what was wrong with much of the church that stood for purity. I came to the conclusion that in the flesh we can stress purity without love or we can stress the love of God without purity, but that in the flesh we cannot stress both simultaneously. In order to exhibit both simultaneously, we must look moment by moment to the work of Christ, to the work of the Holy Spirit. Spirituality begins to have real meaning in our moment-by-moment lives as we begin to exhibit simultaneously the holiness of God and the love of God.

Francis A. Schaeffer, The Church before the Watching World (Downers Grove, 1971), 63.

HT: Ray Ortlund