SANCTIFICATION PRECEDES DIVINE
COMMISSIONING
Memorise: If a man therefore purge
himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for
the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work. 2nd Timothy
2:21
Read: John 17:13-19, Bible in one year:
Daniel 11:12, Matthew 5:21-42
The most important thing a person needs
is to be born-again (John 3:3). From personal experience and from the
experience of others, certain things give you the assurance that you are
born-again. If you are born-again, you stop thinking about yourself alone. You
stop thinking only about what Jesus can do for you but also of what you can do
for Jesus. This was the case with Paul after he met the Lord in Act 9:6:
“And
he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the
Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what
thou must do.”
You also begin to think about
restitution (Luke 19:8), and you begin to serve God with the same vigour with
which you served the devil (Acts 9:20-22).
After you are saved, you need to be
sanctified before you can be divinely commissioned for service. An unsanctified
believer is susceptible to backsliding, hence the need for sanctification. The
state of the human heart before salvation is one of the reason why
sanctification is necessary. Jeremiah 17:9 reveals that:
“The
heat is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
Every person is born with a heart that
is desperately wicked, and every of our actions originate from the heart
(Matthew 15:19-20). Sanctification changes the nature of a person’s heart
(Ezekiel 36:26-27). Many people who were one born-again backslid because of
their failure to get sanctified. A backslider is worse than a sinner who has
never been saved. Backsliding is horrible. It can be likened to a dog going
back to it vomit. Worldliness can cause a Christian worker who backslid. Demas
was an example of a Christians worker who backslid because of his attachment to
the things of this world (Philemon 24, 2nd Timothy 4:10)
The ability to live holy is given by
God. Jesus died for our sanctification. When a person is sanctified, he or she
begins to think like Jesus. You forgive like Jesus and like Him, you become
humble. You develop a servant-spirit and you become obedient and meek (Matthew
11:29). To become sanctified, you must believe that it is possible to live holy
(1st Peter 1:15-16). You must then admit that you cannot do it
without the assistance of the Holy Spirit (John 15:5). Finally, ask God to
remove the heart of stone from you and replace it with a heart of flesh.
Prayer point
Father, sanctify me wholly; give me a
heart of flesh that is in line with your nature.
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