Sanctified with Truth

Before his arrest, Jesus spends time praying for his disciples and for all those who would follow Him (including us, today!). John records a portion of this prayer, and here we see Jesus praying for His followers to be sanctified with truth. As you read pay careful attention to this sanctifying truth – where does it come from? What does it lead toward?  

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REFLECTION

Sanctified In Truth 

by Jeff Morlock

In the movie, “Beauty and the Beast”, Beast discovers that Beauty loves him in all his ugliness. Only then does he himself become beautiful. Only when we understand how much God loves us in all our unloveliness can we ourselves begin to become lovely… and godly. The biblical term for this process is called sanctification, and it has three “tenses”.

In the past, God declared you and me holy because of Jesus’ death on the cross. In this regard, we’re like a lump of clay that’s been purchased by a potter. In the future, all believers will be completely perfected by Christ when he comes again (someday we will become a flawless cup or pot). But in the meantime - in the present - Jesus asks his Father to conform us to his image (by molding us on his potters’ wheel).

We are shaped “by the truth”, Jesus says. Sadly, truth has fallen on hard times, so most people simply do what is right in their own eyes. Yet biblically, truth is not a concept you can agree or disagree with. Truth is a person that you must either accept or reject. Truth is Jesus, the incarnate Word of God. And we come to know Him through the written Truth of revelation, and the proclaimed Truth of preaching. According to Jesus, this is how God works sanctification in those who believe:

 "You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. (John 15:3)
"If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)

Sanctification is God’s work, by the truth of his Word, through the power of the Holy Spirit. So how is the Spirit convicting you of sin today? Are you yielding to the ongoing spirit of repentance and humility that God wants to work into your life? Or resisting?  As the Lord shapes and transforms you by his Word, what lies of the evil one are being exposed? What deceitfulness of heart? The Word of truth conforms our thoughts to God's thoughts, and our feelings to God’s feelings, empowering us to love him with engaged minds and soft hearts. About this ongoing process called sanctification, the reformer Martin Luther observed:

“This life, therefore, is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.” 

Prayer:
My faith looks up to Thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary, Savior divine!
Now hear me while I pray;
Take all my guilt away;
O let me from this day
Be wholly Thine.
(Hymn, “My Faith Looks Up To Thee,” Ray Palmer, 1830)

UALC’S CAMPAIGN OF PRAYER - FRIDAY    

FAITH - Pray for faith instead of fear, that many would come to faith in Jesus and that we would all trust God more deeply during this time.