The process that God uses to get us to godliness is sanctification. This daily devotional reviews how sanctification isn’t an immediate fix but a lifetime of learning to follow Him.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
God meets us where we are for salvation. But He doesn’t leave us that way.
We go through a process called sanctification to become as God is.
Let's Put It into Context
Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration, gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal requickening in us that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
Gaining God’s Character through Sanctification
- Navigating the Sanctification Road is an internal process. We travel the road by increasing the “… love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind …” part of the greatest commandment (Mk. 12: 30 ESV) (In Whose Image Are We Made: God’s or Adam’s?).
- God has a road map of how our lives are supposed to go. It is more than we are to be successful in our lives. It is that every thought God has for us are ones that promote peace. He is the one to accomplish that change from thought to practice. We, however, have to be diligent in doing our part. We set our thoughts above by thinking of God, thereby strengthening our relationships with Him (More Benefits of Setting Our Affections on Things Above; How Do We Set Our Thoughts Above?).
- Following God’s true instructions will bring us to lead godly lives (Attributes of God: True).
- First Peter 1: 5-7 show that we do grow our character (Growing in Godliness).
- When we train, that means we have to be committed to the process. We can’t just work on obtaining God’s character once a week. It is more than just striving for godliness, though. We have to get it to heart level –character change has to get down to the heart level. That is the original source of our relationships with God. It has to be the original source because the heart is from where sin comes. That means that outward acts have to come from the inward faith (Growing in Godliness; How Do We Switch Our Affections in Our Redo for Godliness?).
- If we really get down to the meat and potatoes of it, when we are growing in godliness, we are really growing in faith. We are strengthening our belief in God. Faith includes a self-reflection piece so we can decide what we truly believe. Hope takes that look outside of us and focuses on what God will do for us. Our faith has to lead to a relationship with God. A relationship with God has to lead to a change in our character (Growing in Godliness; The Morality of Being Hopeful; How Do We Switch Our Affections in Our Redo for Godliness?).
- When the repentance isn’t genuine and the regeneration and sanctification isn’t happening, we don’t tap into the power of godliness (What Is the Power That Can Make Us Godly?).
- Drawing near to God means we don’t bombard Him with questions so that we understand everything completely. It is putting all circumstances into God’s hands and going with the flow. We do this by opening our hearts to God (How Are We to Submit to God?).
- Sometimes, we may not fully understand what “… forgetting what is behind …” entails (Phil. 3: 1 CSB). Oh, we understand we are to forget and quit the past sins — which may mean changing our circle of friends. We have to forget the past good works. When we performed that good work, we were not doing it to glorify God. Our goal was not to expand His kingdom. Our goal was probably tied up with trying to make something better in this world. It had nothing to do with our spiritual condition (Diligently Forgetting Sin and Focusing on Godliness).
- For Paul, he boiled it down to one thing: he was aiming for perfection, knowing he wouldn’t achieve it here. What Paul was aiming for was the mark, not the prize. We are not supposed to be aiming for blessedness or perfection. We are to aim for what gets us there — changing our character to be like God’s. Jesus is the prize. Our attainment of God’s character is also the prize. We aren’t going to be totally successful in the change until we get to Heaven. The aim or prize is all about what our character is and Who it looks like. Gaining Heaven is secondary. Being with and like God is primary (Diligently Forgetting Sin and Focusing on Godliness).
- God isn’t just going to give us perfection without us ABCDing and redoing our character (Diligently Forgetting Sin and Focusing on Godliness).
- We kick ourselves for not having God’s character. But we never give ourselves credit for being dissatisfied with who we are. We should never be satisfied. Our growing process must be a life-long process. We never arrive while here on earth. We shouldn’t become complacent with where we are on the Sanctification Road. We can also do better at imitating God (Diligently Forgetting Sin and Focusing on Godliness).
- We think of God revealing His grace on the cross. We even go back further than that. We think of God’s infinite grace through which He devised the Plan of Salvation that made Jesus our Redeemer in order to forgive us of our sins. Occasionally, we might even acknowledge the grace God shows us as we are navigating the Sanctification Road. We need that gift to keep forgiving us as we still break God’s laws and commandments as we learn to be like Him. But how many times does it sink in that God isn’t done giving us his grace yet? There is still grace to come. God will really show us His grace when Jesus comes back (The Morality of Being Hopeful).
- Morality is a system of conduct where we determine right from wrong. Isn’t that what the Sanctification Road is teaching us — right from wrong? Good from evil? We don’t get to choose the goodness and pass on the righteousness part. If we do, we are passing on the God part (How Do Morals Improve Our Discipleship?).
- As Creator, He does have control of everything. He has not abdicated that control to anyone. We are accountable to Him (Attributes of God: Just).
- The whole purpose of Paul’s instruction was to show conformity with God’s previous vows to help us to redo ourselves for godliness. God receives the glory, and we receive salvation (Attributes of God: True).
- Do we have a little red wagon that we are carrying our guilt around in? Have we not done a mission project we were supposed to do? Did we do a sin that was really a don’t? Satan is going to just jump right on that and milk it for all it is worth. Or he will try. Those baggage-wagons are — many times — going to hinder us from changing our character to be like God’s. We are going to feel unworthy, like we aren’t making enough progress, or that we aren’t making any at all. We’ve got to keep our eyes on God. He will tell us if we are making enough success to please Him. We have to give our baggage-wagons to God. He will lighten them (Renewing the Inward Person).
- In order to gird our minds, we need to replace vanity with humility (Renewing Our Inner Person by Being Sober).
- Tightening our belts would help us with our sobriety. It increases our self-control. The consistency of sobriety should foster the hope. It brings a harmony to our lives that strengthens us. It calms all the clashing factions in our minds (Renewing Our Inner Person by Being Sober).
- Hope is only maintained by self-discipline (Renewing Our Inner Person by Being Sober).
- Prayer strengthens us to resist temptation. Jesus knew that there were some temptations that we would only be able to withstand if we were constantly praying. He knew that God was in ultimately in control (Jesus’ Prayer of Submission).
- Disciples will always have both natures (sinful and spiritual) until we get our new bodies in Heaven. Because of that, we have to be cognizant of our physical nature (Setting Our Affections on Things of Earth).
- Our corrupt nature isn’t concerned about what is good and evil. It is only concerned about what feels good (Setting Our Affections on Things of Earth).
- When we follow our fleshly nature, we are rebelling against God. We are refusing to submit to Him. God wants us to be transformed from people seeking worldly pleasures to disciples who are seeking to live in His Will. He is looking for an inward change (Setting Our Affections on Things of Earth).
- Pride is the exact opposite of what God wants. We think we don’t need God when God wants us to depend on Him (Setting Our Affections on Things of Earth).
- God doesn’t want us to be self-sufficient. He wants us to put our trust in Him that He will provide our needs (Setting Our Affections on Things of Earth).
- Satan is going to do everything he can to make our Sanctification Road as hilly and bumpy as possible. He wants to wreck our relationship with God so that he can get us back (Setting Our Affections on Things of Earth).
Father God. You want us to imitate You. In order to get there, You sanctify us. Thank You that You don’t give up on us. You hep us through our lives to become more like You. Amen.
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