Dear Believers,
Thank you for praying with us on this Wednesday for our prodigals and for revival.
For the next few weeks, I would like to write on the subject of sanctification. It is a beautiful truth that of speaks of the process where God changes a person from being a sinner to a saint. (The word saint simply means one who is set apart or holy.) Sanctification is a divine work in our lives to separate us from the world and from what is sinful, and also to set us apart unto Himself. For this to happen we need to cooperate with the work He is doing within us. Christianity is not a self-help program. It is a God-initiated and God-enabled program from start to finished.
On the day of salvation, we were set apart by God, miraculously taken from the realm of darkness, and put into the kingdom of light. “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col.1:13). This changing of our position is what God has done.
It is important for us to know what God has done because it is through knowledge of the truth (as we receive it by faith) that we are able to enjoy the deeper knowledge of experience in our walk with God. This is what Paul is saying in the early verses of Romans 6:
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His” (Rom.6:1-5).
The understanding of the truth of substitution, that Christ died for us, led us to faith in Christ for deliverance from sin’s penalty. The understanding of the truth of representation, that we died with Christ, allows us to walk in union with Him throughout our Christian lives. But Paul goes a step further to say that not only did we die with Him, but we were buried with Him, and we were also raised with Him to walk in newness of life. This means we died to our old life of sin. It is buried and done with. This also means that we have newfound power from God, received by faith, to live in victory over sin. As we appropriate positional truth in our lives, through the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8), we will become more like Him in holiness. Thus positional sanctification leads to practical sanctification. May it be so for each of us.
Thanks again for praying.
Love in Christ,
Bryan and Rachel
