Godsloveandlaw's Blog

Sanctification in our Christian life is comparable to a ladder. Each step up, brings us closer to God, more Christ like. But we must continue to walk UP this ladder and not stay for long on the same step in our walk. Otherwise we will be found “lukewarm” and take the very real chance of being “sprewed out” when our Lord’s judgement comes. Let us look at the process of sanctification.

Perhaps the simplest way to view “sanctification” is think of it as getting cleaned up. In other words, sins are leaving and the Holy Spirit is taking over more and more, guiding you to be closer to our Lord. And the purer we get the more we can see two VERY IMPORTANT aspects of our life  –the terribleness of sin  and the clearer understanding of God’s written word. These two aspects make us walk much closer to our Lord. Let us look at the first of those aspects.

In my own Christian experience, I have seen the many sins I brought into my initial walk leave my life. I mean the tobacco, the idol music, the lust, the other idols (sports, poker, etc.) they were one by one, chopped out of my life. We can look at it like this. We each have a large tree stump of sin when we begin. And as we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us, we are made aware of each and every sin and asked to chop that part out of our life. We then submit to the calling to eliminate it. We are walking UP the ladder.

The serious problem comes in our walk when we rationalize just this one “little sin”. It is that little sin that we hold on to that STOPS our walk upward. The big bad tree stump of sins is allowed to grow alittle more and we now have “two little sins” we hold onto. And it can snow ball from there. And if we continue this way, the devil will help guide us down the ladder, back to where we started!

We should be ever learning, searching, doing good works. Lukewarm is basically being satisfied and happy(stuck) in our routine. As Revelation says, we are in serious trouble when we think we are satisfied and in need of nothing. We are in need of growing and improving our walk, so as to go up another step of the ladder.

One of the greatest things I was shown in my walk,  by our Lord, was how to continue to chop away at my sins. It was to quote scripture when tempted. This was AWESOME!!!  Let’s use tobacco for instance. I had chewed it about 15 or 16 years prior to accepting Christ. Then the habit was still with me in my early walk, even I did it in church a few times!  I knew it had to go. The Holy Spirit was nudging me “Hey let’s get cleaned up here!” it said.

So I found that the Lord’s example of how He handled temptation (in the desert) was good enough for me–HE QUOTED SPECIFIC SCRIPTURE against the specific temptation. For instance when the devil tempted Him to create food to eat, He replied (Matt 4:4) “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”  and He got the victory! So I thought I’ll find one for tobacco. I did, it was (Psalms 23:1) “The  Lord is my shepherd, I shall NOT WANT”. In other words, not want tobacco.

So I began my “Scripture Quote” plan of attack. The first few days I had to quote it maybe 15 or 20 times a day, because of the many temptations I had at the beginning. At the end of my quote I always said to the devil — Be gone from me devil, in the name of Jesus!! And sure enough the urge to chew tobacco left me instantly. Wowsa!  I was onto something and I knew it. So soon after I was only quoting maybe 2 or 3 times in day and I was on my way to total elimination. Not even a small temptation now.

Now, about the other aspect– understanding God’s word. Again, I will use my own example. As sins left me, and I was getting more sanctified, God’s word was getting more and more clear. You see, God’s word is He Himself as the word says. Therefore when we get closer to Him by being holier, He says in effect ” My son (or daughter) come up here (higher rung of ladder) and behold my deeper truths of my word.

So I have come to a point where certain parts of scripture that were not understandable, now is clear. For instance , the many parts of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malichi, etc  where they say  “In that day….”  or “In the Latter times it shall …..” I now know the meanings. The Bible “comes alive” as never before. Why? Because I have submitted to chopping sins from my life. The Holy 10 Commandments are my DAILY guide and not just some empty Laws to know. Rather they are MY LIFE’S RULES I live by.

So  my brothers and sisters, let us keep in mind that our sins cannot be ignored if we want to walk up the ladder of sanctification. If we pray this prayer often, He will hear us   ” Dear God, help me to know my sins clearly, so that I can address them, and walk uprightly in your site”

Amen , In Christ, Rob

This entry was posted on September 17, 2011 at 4:11 am and is filed under Sanctification. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.