Well, as usual, I'm encouraged by God's patience time and time again. I've been mulling over the idea of sanctification quite a bit this week. It's a hard thing to grasp, but I think it will do a lot for my spiritual growth to try and understand it better.
Sanctification is kind of like the "what now" phase of the Christian life. The reality has set in and now you have to learn to accept what living day-to-day as a Christian is going to be like. Sanctification, so far in my experience, has been more about falling down than moving forward. It's been more about exposing my darkness than spreading my light.
It is like a forever battle between my will and God's will, and God just does not allow me to move forward spiritually on my own merits. No matter how bad I want to be righteous in my own strength, it just doesn't happen that way.
In any other facet of life if you failed at something this many times no one would blame you for giving up. Go do something you can succeed at; don't spin your wheels on something that's never going to happen. For me to think that I'm going to live a godly life, a devoted - consecrated -life to God at this point seems completely illogical. I have little to no experiential evidence that I'm capable of loving God with my whole being. However, I am resolved that this is where my faith should be placed, that not I, but the Lord is capable.
"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 7:24-25
Sanctification is an empty-handed plea for help. Don't stop asking for it.
1 Cor 10:13; Heb 4:14-16; 1 Cor 1:30-31; Gal 2:20
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