Sanctification

When you undergo trials, how do you look at the experience? If you think of the trial in a spiritual context, do you wonder if you have done something for which you are being punished? Do you wonder if the Holy Spirit is in the process of strengthening your faith? Do you think God must be busy dealing with someone who has a greater need?

What if God is simply trying to help you understand? What if it has nothing to do with you? What if God is simply answering our prayer that we might learn how to be more compassionate?

Rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings.

(1 Peter 4:13)

Hebrews 4:15 tell us  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin.
That is a tremendous comfort. It is not always a moral thing. Sometimes our Lord is simply teaching us something about compassion. He might be preparing us for an opportunity to minister to someone else.

He has allowed us to follow a difficult journey so that we can understand someone else’s journey later in life. I know that seems, at times, a harsh sentence, us going through difficulties so we can understand someone else’s difficulties. I have learned to look at it as a training ground. Our life is like that. Things do not happen in a vacuum. Whatever happens in our life, god intends for us to use it for his glory. Knowing this, look at life differently, your Lord giving you all the tools you need, not just for your own life journey but to share in the journeys of others as well.

Pastor Craig

What Does God Want?

What does God want for your life? We all say we want God’s will? Most of us struggle to find it. However, we usually limit it to major decisions in life. Should I take this job or that job? Which college should I attend? Who will be my perfect mate? Some of us agonize over what we think God may want us to do; others assume that God wants whatever is in our best interests, whatever will make us happy, so that is how we decide.

There are a handful of things we can know for certain that God wills for our lives.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification.

(1 Thessalonians 4:1)

Many of us think Sanctification is something that is automatic, coming with salvation instantaneously. Not so, that is Justification. The process of Sanctification begins with our salvation, but it is never completed in this life.

The strict definition of Sanctification is “to set apart something for the use for which it was intended.” The “set apartness” takes place at the moment of salvation. The living out of that “set apartness” takes a lifetime. It involves a constant search for what God wants us to do with our lives. It involves active engagement in ministry. It involves intentional learning and study of the Scriptures that we might discern what God expects from us.

Sanctification is not a question of whether God is willing to bring about this work in me. The question is, “Am I willing to bow my will to His? Am I willing to put myself under his complete guidance, saying ‘More of Thee and less of me?’” Am I willing to say I will give up that which I dearly wish was God’s will for that which I see revealed in His word to be true? Am I willing to let God do in and through me everything He can for the furtherance of His kingdom and the glorification of His name?

It is time for the body of Christ to become more Christ-like. We often pray that the Spirit of Christ would fill us. Now, we must add to our prayers the actions which are indeed Christ-like.

Know, as you begin, that the road is too difficult for you. That is why Jesus provided the Comforter from the very first days of the Church. The path is steep and the way is hard. Each of us battles against our own nature, a way that seems right, but which the Holy Spirit tells will lead to our own spiritual downfall.

We have spent enough time trying to remake God in our image, with our likes and dislikes. It is time for us to be remade in His.

Pastor Craig

Becoming

Experience: that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Franklin P. Jones

 

I am writing this short article shortly after Easter. The events surrounding Easter are believed to have followed approximately three years of intense contact with Jesus by the twelve disciples. These men had been witnesses to the miracles, they heard the teaching, they had been privileged to interpretations of the parables that many others had not fully understood, and they had seen the risen Christ.

In our times of doubt, difficulty, or despair we often find ourselves wishing we could stand in the presence of our Lord in the same way the early disciples did. We imagine how much stronger our faith would be if we could witness the same miracles. We marvel at the wisdom and boldness of Peter, John, Timothy, Paul, Silas, James, and others. However, when we read through the New Testament the lives of these men are not always what we would expect. Their lives still seem to be mixtures of death and life. There seems to have been a time when Peter and Paul may not have been on the best terms. Paul parted ways with his first missionary partner over a disagreement concerning whether John Mark should travel with them or not. Peter had doubts and moments of his legendary impulsiveness from time to time. Yes, they are indeed changed men, but they are far from perfected. They were living through that marvelous thing called experience. In the Christian walk, add in the Holy Spirit and we might even refer to it as sanctification, that process of becoming more like Christ as we journey along in faith.

It turns out that our faith journey is exactly that, a journey. Jesus repeated his call to “Follow me!” many times to those first disciples. It was not a one-time offer. It wasn’t a completed work when Matthew left his tax collecting booth, or when Peter, James, and John left their nets and their boats. Those acts of leaving where more like the one step of backing out of the driveway at the beginning of a cross country vacation. There is still a whole big, long adventure ahead of us.

 In one sense, a Christian is not something you became through a call to faith in Jesus Christ. It is something you are becoming. This becoming is a process that will take your whole life, a time filled with tremendous leaps forward, other times when you feel is if you have gone back to the beginning and are starting all over, and still other times when it seems as if you have been marching in place for a very long time. However you look at it, following Christ is the EXPERIENCE of a lifetime and for a lifetime.

Pastor Craig