Sanctification

        I remember a job that I had applied for had required a long list of references and it seemed to include almost everyone I knew from former employers to friends to teachers as well as family members. The new employer then began a background check on all of my references to make sure I was of the right material for the job. People from the government actually contacted those people mentioned in my application and asked them all kinds of questions about me. In the end, I was approved as being suitable for the job and was allowed to go inside the building after six months cutting weeds and going to school for the company. By then, my expertise with the machete was getting good at whacking large thistles. My character, it seems, was good enough for the company but certainly not good enough for God. First Thessalonians 4:1-3 says, “Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:” 

         It was several years later after hiring on with this company that I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord. Since then, it has been a life of steadily growing, bit by bit in my spiritual life. This is what sanctification is all about. As the Apostle Peter mentions, we need to be growing in the grace an knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That growing process is called our sanctification. Paul also speaks much about this process of sanctification that occurs in our Christian life. Romans six, seven and eight all speak about the process in a lot more detail. The church at Thessalonica has exhorted to be involved in this process and Paul gives them some rather specific exhortation in regard to personal sanctification. In fact, this section of Scripture tells us what one of the areas of the will of God is for our lives. We often ask God, “What is your will for my life?” Well, here is one of them clearly stated in this passage with the words, “...For this is the will of God...” How much clearer can you be in answering the question, “What is God's will for my life?” Fornication was a problem in the days of the early church just as much as it is in our daily life in our present culture. Fornication makes no boundaries and can be found in all walks of life from the highest positions in the world to the lowest positions. Rich or poor, educated or uneducated, bosses and employees, it is always present. Why it has even been found to exist in the lives of pastors and other leaders in churches of all denominations. It would seem that men and women have the idea that it can never happen to them and then it does and lives are ruined as a result of the action. We may think of fornication as the final act but the Lord Jesus Christ made it quite clear that even the thought of it was dangerous and that the act can be committed even in the heart before the act itself is manifested in the flesh. There is no problem in trying to interpret the word “abstain” that occurs in the flesh. It means what it says. If a person approaches God and asks the question, “What is your will for my life?” should take note of the passage here. This is one of the big ones. How do we do this? We spend our time in the Word of God. Bethel Baptist Church in Parkersburg, West Virginia had a simple purpose statement. “Scripture and Prayer to conform us to the image of Christ.” You can't go wrong with that. Praise God that He instructs us on how we should then live out the Christian life.