Sanctification: The process whereby a follower of Christ
becomes more and more like Him.
Oswald Chambers wrote this:
The Cost of Sanctification
May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely . . .
1 Thessalonians 5:23
When we pray, asking God to sanctify us, are we prepared to measure
up to what that really means? We take the word sanctification much
too lightly. Are we prepared to pay the cost of sanctification? The
cost will be a deep restriction of all our earthly concerns, and an
extensive cultivation of all our godly concerns. Sanctification
means to be intensely focused on Gods point of view. It means to
secure and to keep all the strength of our body, soul, and spirit
for Gods purpose alone. Are we really prepared for God to perform
in us everything for which He separated us? And after He has done
His work, are we then prepared to separate ourselves to God just as
Jesus did? "For their sakes I sanctify Myself . . ." ( John 17:19
). The reason some of us have not entered into the experience of
sanctification is that we have not realized the meaning of
sanctification from Gods perspective. Sanctification means being
made one with Jesus so that the nature that controlled Him will
control us. Are we really prepared for what that will cost? It will
cost absolutely everything in us which is not of God.
Are we prepared to be caught up into the full meaning of Pauls
prayer in this verse? Are we prepared to say, "Lord, make me, a
sinner saved by grace, as holy as You can"? Jesus prayed that we
might be one with Him, just as He is one with the Father (see John
17:21-23 ). The resounding evidence of the Holy Spirit in a
persons life is the unmistakable family likeness to Jesus Christ,
and the freedom from everything which is not like Him. Are we
prepared to set ourselves apart for the Holy Spirits work in
us?
