God is a wonderful God. He has made provision for us to walk in a manner that is pleasing to Him. If you are struggling in your walk with Christ if you feel defeated, if life is more down than up. Take some time to read this. This study on Sanctification is long but stick with it. Go over the scriptures and comments. Get them into your heart. Your best days are ahead. The power of the Holy Spirit will help you to walk in greater holiness.
1 Peter 1:2 (NKJV)-2 elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.
Sanctification is being separated unto God for a holy purpose and separated from the world.
2 Cor 6:17
Living in holiness in today’s culture is a battleground. Holiness is living in wholeness-spirit soul and body. 1 Thess 5:23. We can’t say that what we do in the body is irrelevant to God. As long as we think good things, do good things, and that God only cares about our spiritual lives exclusive of our bodies is not the whole picture. The body is the vehicle through which we live and connect with the world around us. The brain is part of your body and is different from your mind. The Word (Jesus) became flesh (He had a physical body without a sinful nature) and dwelt among us. The Word of God comes through our lives living through us as we dwell in this world in our earthly bodies. God makes it very clear in scripture that the body is important. That we are to be conformed to the image of Christ. Rom 8:29.
Culture today, the “me” generation, postmodernism, relativism, situational ethics, subjective truth, alternative facts, no moral or absolute truths. It’s all about self and selfish desires. Magnifying man’s right to indulge himself. We see this, especially in the area of God-given desires, such as sexuality. Satan has taken God-given desires and perverted them.
Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David. But David grew stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker. 2 Sam 3:1
Saul- a type of the flesh-carnal life.
David- a type of spiritual life- the heart.
We are in a war, spiritual battle and it’s right on our doorstep. It’s not across the hall, it’s not at the neighbor’s house. It’s at your doorstep. You can’t ignore it. In Eph 6:10-15 it tells us we are in a spiritual warfare.
I say then: Walk (Habitually) in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill (bring to pass) the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. (In your own strength) But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. (Condemnation, works mentality, performance ) Gal 5:16
1 Peter 2:11 (AMP)-11 Beloved, I implore you as aliens and strangers and exiles [in this world] to abstain from the sensual urges (the evil desires, the passions of the flesh, your lower nature) that wage war against the soul.
2 Peter 2:7-8 (AMP)-7 And He rescued righteous Lot, greatly worn out and distressed by the wanton ways of the ungodly and lawless— 8 For that just man, living [there] among them, tortured his righteous soul every day with what he saw and heard of [their] unlawful and wicked deeds—
Romans 8:5-9 (NKJV)-5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.
This makes it clear that we are not just a body -flesh, and soul but we are spiritual beings. God is a Spirit and we worship Him in Spirit and in truth. John 4:24. We don’t have to be dominated by the flesh or carnal nature-thinking-anymore. We have a choice.
I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. Rom 6:21-25
This war has gone on from the beginning starting with the fall of Adam. If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” Gen 4:7
There is an important principle here: By doing well, you will feel well. Cain was angry and depressed because of his sin. God didn’t put him in therapy and ask him about his childhood. Rather He said, “Act right and you will feel right.” If you obey God and judge sinful feelings, your feelings will come around, and you will find yourself feeling good. But if you follow your feelings and disobey God, you will be plunged into guilt, condemnation, and depression. If you don’t do well, sin is crouching at the door. God pictures sin as a wild animal ready to pounce. It has a desire for you; it thirsts for your blood. It is your mortal enemy. But you must master it.
Sin always begins with wrong thoughts. If you let those wrong thoughts go on, they lead to wrong feelings. Wrong feelings lead to wrong words, wrong words to wrong actions, wrong actions to wrong habits. Steven Cole
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess (take charge) his own vessel in sanctification (separation) and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit. 1 Thess 4:3-5, 7
We are rejecting truth today, deception is at play. Distorting the true nature of God and who He is. Today Identity theft is running rampant. Satan trying to steal our identity in Christ, who we are in Christ. To get us to doubt the goodness and character of God.
“Sanctification” is a very irrelevant word, but it is not an irrelevant reality. It’s like a hundred technical medical terms. Nobody but doctors use them, but your life depends on the reality they stand for. John Piper
Sanctification is not a list of do’s and don’ts. Sanctification is not earning God’s love and approval by always trying to do the right thing. He already loves you regardless of what you do or don’t do. Yet sin is stupid, living carnally is stupid. It opens an inroad into your life by the devil. Rom 8:6, Eph 4:27
1 Corinthians 6:18 (AMP)-18 Shun immorality and all sexual looseness [flee from impurity in thought, word, or deed]. Any other sin which a man commits is one outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Rom 8:6
“Sanctification” comes from two Latin words: sanctus which means holy, and ficare which means make. So to sanctify means to make holy. But, of course, the word “holy” isn’t much more relevant today than sanctification―what with “holy mackerel” and “holy cow” and “holy buckets”, holy crap―we’ve just about ruined one of the highest and most valuable words in the Bible. John Piper
Romans 6:17—19 confirms that we’ve gotten on track with Paul in connecting obedience and sanctification. Verse 17: “Thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.” Then verse 19b: “For just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification.”
Sanctification is obeying the Commander-in-Chief not the impulses of the flesh. Sanctification is a wartime word. A sanctified person has an unswerving commitment to his cause. A sanctified person has uncompromising loyalty to the Commander and to his comrades in arms. So whenever you think of sanctification, think of wartime missions and wartime character. John Piper
2Ti 2:4-No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.
So when it comes to living a holy life, a sanctified life God has given us His resources. We are not without answers or help.
2 Peter 1:3-4 (NKJV)
3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Notice it is the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. Your body (Including your brain) is the temple of the Holy Spirit 1 Cor 3:16 1 Cor 6:16
For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. 1 Cor 6:17-19
1 Corinthians 6:13 (NKJV)-13 Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
The Lord Is for the Body
Then he says that not only is the body for the Lord, “the Lord is for the body.” That is, Christ is not indifferent to the body. He cares about it. He puts a premium on how we make use of it. He makes the body his temple (1 Cor 6:19). He is “for the body”―not against it, and not indifferent to it.
Culture focuses on the mind and the body, and ignores the spirit of man. His eternal destiny. It’s all about today. Pleasing self.
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor 2:14
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Rom 8:5-6
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. Rom 6:12-14
There will always be this pull to carnality. The residue of the Sin nature that is in your members.
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. 1 John 2:15-17
This won’t change until the redemption of our bodies. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. Rom 8:23. Overcoming the flesh by focusing on the spirit. Focusing on the Word of God, the love of God, for God, and others.
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 2 Cor 10:4-5.
You can’t fight flesh with flesh. It’s not willpower over sinful desires. The power to overcome is Christ in you. But it is a choice you make daily. Sanctification is not having a better flesh, a new and improved flesh. It is learning to mortify the flesh by the Spirit. To walk in God’s love rather than selfishness. It’s not just saying no to the flesh but saying yes to the spirit. Saying yes to the Word of God.
Galatians 3:3 (NKJV)-3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
Galatians 3:3 (AMP)-3 Are you so foolish and so senseless and so silly? Having begun [your new life spiritually] with the [Holy] Spirit, are you now reaching perfection [by dependence] on the flesh?
Romans 8:13 (NKJV)-13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death (mortify) the deeds of the body, you will live.
The flesh is the ego which feels an emptiness and uses the resources in its power to try to fill it, to satisfy it. Especially when we are lonely, depressed, have a pity party, question God’s faithfulness, when we are tired, anxious, doubting, and in unbelief. Flesh is the “I” who tries to satisfy me with anything but God’s mercy. Notice Galatians 5:24, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
A Christian is not a person who experiences no bad desires. A Christian is a person who is at war with those desires by the power of the Spirit. There is power in God in a life that is walking in sanctification. Walking in holiness and purity. Again It’s a daily walk, not just saying no to the flesh but also saying yes to the Spirit of God. You allow the Spirit to control you by keeping your heart happy in God. Or to put it another way, you walk by the Spirit when your heart is resting in the promises of God.
Romans 6:19-20 (NKJV) -19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
Barclay: I tell you, let your walk and conversation be dominated by the Spirit, and don’t let the desires of the lower side of your nature have their way. (Westminster Press).The word for walk, peripateite, in its wider usage in Greek means “to walk around after someone or to walk in a particular direction” (George, Galatians, 386). In the days of Aristotle, his students were known as peripatetics because of their habit of following their teacher around (ibid.). For the Christian, to walk by the Spirit, or to be led by the Spirit, means to follow our Teacher around. We must listen to the Spirit’s Word, discern His will, and follow His guidance. This is not a deeper life or higher life; this is the normal Christian life.
Walking by the Spirit is what we do when the desires produced by the Spirit are stronger than the desires produced by the flesh. This means that “walking by the Spirit” is not something we do in order to get the Spirit’s help, but rather, just as the phrase implies, it is something we do by the enablement of the Spirit. John Piper
Therefore, “walking by the Spirit” is something the Holy Spirit enables us to do by producing in us strong desires that accord with God’s will. This is what God said he would do in Ezekiel 36:26, 27:
Thus when we “walk by the Spirit,” we experience the fulfillment of this prophecy. The Holy Spirit produces in us desires for God’s way that are stronger than our fleshly desires, and thus he causes us to walk in God’s statutes.
2Co 3:18-But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Robert Gromacki – Just as justification is not possible through the efforts of self, so sanctification cannot be achieved through one’s own energy (Will power alone) either. Both come from the provision and power of God….Paul wanted the Galatians to realize that obedience to the law was not necessary for progressive sanctification. The sinner is not only justified by faith, but he is also sanctified by faith (Rom. 1:17). (Stand Fast in Liberty: An Exposition of Galatians)
God will “strengthen us by his Spirit in our inward man,” (Eph 3:16-note)… Weak as we are in ourselves, “nothing shall be impossible to us,” (Mt 17:20) if we trust in Him: he will “give us more grace (Jas 4:6-note),” and “strength according to our day.” (Dt 33:25KJV)
Whatever our temptations, “the grace of Christ shall be sufficient for us (2Cor 12:9-note);” and “we shall be enabled to do all things through Christ, who strengthens us.” (Phil 4:13-note)…
“Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.” — Susanna Wesley (Letter, June 8, 1725)
You are sanctified in your spirit.- you are holy, set apart, pure and righteous in your spirit. The spirit of just men made perfect. 1 John 4:17
Hebrews 12:23 (NKJV)-23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,
You are being sanctified -set apart in your soul-mind, emotions, will, personality, imagination, conscience, and sub-conscience as you renew your mind with God’s Word. Rom 12:1-2
You can’t have sanctification without the truth of the scriptures. God’s word reveals his heart, his will, and his desire for you. It reveals the Truth. We are not sanctified according to the blurred lines of morality in present-day culture. It’s the truth you know that will set you free from a carnal life. John 8:32. When you choose to walk in the flesh and obey its ungodly desires it only spells death. Death is separation from a spirit-filled life. A loss of joy and peace. You are working and walking against the truth.
John 8:31-32 (NKJV)-31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
To watch things, read things, and listen to things that promote ungodliness is sowing seeds to the flesh (creating a Toxic -Mind) and reaping seeds of shame, guilt, and condemnation, providing an inroad of the enemy into your life.
Maturing in the love of God and for God is a key to obeying God from the heart. When we love God we are in harmony with Him. Love wants to do the right thing rather than pleasing oneself.
Know when we are vulnerable. Recognize and ward off the opportunities to indulge in sin. When we are tired, lonely, afraid, discouraged, disappointed, angry, or disappointed or we feel abandoned, when we feel let down, feel like a failure, forsaken by the Lord.
Time to man -up in the spirit and run, flee youthful lust. Pray in the Spirit, get in the Word-walk away. If you sow to the spirit, sow good seeds you will reap in a positive way. Free from guilt, shame, condemnation, etc.
Ephesians 4:27 (AMP) -27 Leave no [such] room or foothold for the devil [give no opportunity to him].
God is not mad at you. He’s not even in a bad mood. He’s never going to be mad at you. God loves you, and that’s it. He loves you, period, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t make God love you anymore, and you can’t make God love you any less. Once you become born again, He will never leave you nor forsake you (Heb. 13:5). He will never withdraw from you. He will constantly hear your prayers. But, there’s a lot you can do to make you love God less. There’s a lot you can do that will harden your heart and blind you and deaden you, making you insensitive toward Him. Andrew Wommack
Every time sin and every time you violate your conscience, you put a layer of insensitivity between you and God. If you live that way long enough, you can become spiritually dull and non-perceptive. You will no longer hear from God, and you’ll assume God’s not speaking to you because you’re living in sin. No, God’s still speaking. You just can’t hear. You’ve become deaf because of your sin. Andrew Wommack
Deal with sin quickly, especially in the thought life. You are a product of your thought life. You are what you eat. You are what you think. Prov. 23:7.If the devil’s beating up on you, you aren’t keeping your mind stayed on the Lord. You aren’t taking every thought captive and making it obey the Word. You aren’t picturing who you are in Christ. Instead, you’re letting your stinkin’ thinkin’ rob you. You’re letting your imagination run wild, and you’re conceiving sin, fear, and failure. Remember that what you conceive—unless there’s an intervention—will be birthed (James 1:15). Wommack, Andrew.
Sanctification and authority
You give authority to wrong spirits, demonic spirits when you yield to sin on an ongoing basis! It’s not God’s will. He has made provision. The moment you humble yourself and confess your sin, the forgiveness that’s already a reality in your spirit comes out into your soul and into your body, and Satan no longer has rights to you because you’ve humbled yourself before the Lord. Wommack, Andrew.
1 Peter 5:6 (NKJV) -6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,
James 4:6-7 (NKJV)
6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” 7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
James 4:7 (AMP) -7 So be subject to God. Resist the devil [stand firm against him], and he will flee from you.
So, what do you do? If you’ve given place to the devil through sin, you confess it. You humble yourself. When you do, your body and soul will come under the dominion of God, and Satan will no longer have access to you. Wommack, Andrew.
But a person who continues in sin is like a person who beats their hand with a hammer, all the while saying, “God, please take away the pain.” Bam, bam, bam! “God, take away the pain.” Yet that person just can’t understand why they still have pain. How dumb can you get and still breathe? Andrew Wommack
Quit hitting yourself. Just quit sinning! Quit giving Satan access to your life. Satan has a legal right to you when you yield yourself to him through sin. You gave him control and permission. How do you stop that? By confessing that sin. Andrew Wommack
It’s a problem because God wants you to have all His benefits, but you can’t live one way and experience God’s blessings at the same time. It’s not because God doesn’t want to bless you and give things to you. It’s because you’re giving Satan free access to your life. First John 1:9 has nothing to do with your eternal salvation, but it’s simply that when you recognize that you’ve given place to the devil, you stop his entrance into your life through repentance and confession. Andrew Wommack
Your flesh is not your master. You have authority over it. Don’t let it dominate you. Authority is knowing who you are in Christ and that you have the name of Jesus, Authority in the soul through renewing your mind will carry through in dominating your flesh. Giving into fleshly desire is giving authority to the flesh and the devil.
The desire for sexual satisfaction is a good servant of procreation and marriage joy, but if sin captures it, the desire becomes lust for pornography or masturbation or fornication or adultery or homosexual relations, and our sexual organs become the weapons of unrighteousness.
It’s clobbering time- Put on Christ new man-reckon yourself dead to sin but alive in Christ.
Romans 13:12-14 (NKJV)-12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.
Ephesians 4:24 (NKJV)-24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
Do the right thing in the power of the Holy Spirit.
In Christ’s Love;
Brent and Linda Bushen
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