Tuesday 20 May 2014

Thinking Out Loud

Sanctification is the fancy word for Christian growth.

Growing as a Christian is simply loving Jesus more, quite apart from effort.

Loving Jesus more and more necessarily issues in serving Him, because our desires are changing.

Of course, this looks like 'justification by effort', and 'law keeping', but from the inside, we know it's not.

Serving Jesus looks like serving people, His people and other people, because we are loved, not to earn that love.

Loving Jesus looks like wanting to spend tome with Him, reading the Bible and praying.

Loving Jesus looks like wanting to be like Him, because we want to be near the Ones we love.

These desires are given by the Holy Spirit, not human effort, we can't work our way up to Heaven.

The Holy Spirit, whose influence grows as we love Jesus more, and who shows us more of Jesus to love, therefore gives us the power, and the inclination to obey and love the Word of God.

'In the beginning was the Word...and the Word was God.'

So sanctification, obedience, is all of God, from beginning to end.

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