In our last lesson called: ” Believing God To Empower Your Gifts” we discussed the reality that true faith in God provides the necessary power to inherit the spiritual gifts given freely by God to the ones who believe. In today’s lesson, we shall examine some of the other specific aspects of how each believer in Christ Jesus will be “Sanctified By The Spirit And Truth”
Old Testament Scripture Reading: Isaiah 1:16 – 20 (KJV)
Isa 1:16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
Isa 1:17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Isa 1:19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
Isa 1:20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
New Testament Scripture Reading: Philippians 3:12 – 21 (KJV)
Php 3:12 Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
Php 3:13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
Php 3:14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Php 3:15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you;
Php 3:16 however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.
Php 3:17 Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.
Php 3:18 For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ,
Php 3:19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.
Php 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
Php 3:21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
Transforming Power Statements:
1) From the fall of Adam, and clear on up to the days of Israel, God’s chosen people, there has been a need for sanctification, which is a process of living by faith in God’s revealed revelation of the realities of becoming sanctified not only in position toward God, but also “actually” acquiring righteous behavior as a result of the fellowship with God and His other selected people, as well as the remainder of mankind.
2) As we can see through the Prophet Isaiah’s revelation of the status of Israel, people very often get off the actual path which God designed for proper relationship with Him and others, only to create their own systems of doing life, which God ultimately hates, and does not provide true righteous behavior.
3) New testament revelation, such as we can see in Paul’s letter to the Church at Philippi shows us that the work of sanctification is never a completed work; but rather an ongoing progressive process of the application of the Word and the Spirit, which continues throughout this life.