One night at dinner last month, my husband asked our kids what the term “sanctification” means. We’d been reading 1 Thessalonians together and got to chapter 4 where Paul tells us what God’s will for our lives is: our sanctification (1 Thess. 4:3). I don’t know if I ever noticed this verse until a few months ago. Want to know what God’s will is for your life? It’s written in black ink on white paper in your Bible: “your sanctification.” My husband boiled it down for the kids like this—”more and more.” That’s what sanctification is. Becoming more and more like Jesus.
This is what God desires for every believer: to become more and more like Jesus.
And this is what He will accomplish.
It’s slow-going, though, isn’t it? Sometimes I turn out the light at the end of the day, pull the comforter up to my chin, and think, “Today felt like less and less like Jesus, not more and more.” I feel my weaknesses, see my sinfulness, and want a do-over I can’t have. But mercies are new with tomorrow’s sunrise, and the beauty of sanctification is that it is forward moving, degree by degree, little by little.
Even when you can’t see it, the Lord is chipping away at your heart—revealing your sin so you can fight it. He’s sanding down the edges of selfishness and molding the contours of your heart to look more like Christ. Every day that you look to Jesus and struggle against your flesh and cry out with a weak voice to the Holy Spirit to help you be who you are in Christ, you are decreasing. And He is increasing.
Less and less like you, more and more like Him.
Bit by bit.
One degree of degree of glory to another, Paul says.
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor. 3:18)
This is a long game, and it feels especially long cloistered at home with days that are hard to differentiate. One block on the calendar is as empty as the next. Why keep track at all, I wonder sometimes. How can sameness and solitude be tools that chisel away at my heart like this? God is too faithful to waste these days. If His plan for your life is to be more like Jesus (and it is), He will fulfill that plan in the midst of isolation.
If you’re at home alone, He’ll use the loneliness to make you more like Jesus. If you’re feeling suffocated with a new family “normal,” God will use the chaos to make you more like Jesus. If you’re working long hours as an essential worker, He’ll use your exhaustion to make you more like Jesus. More and more. The challenges of these days might make you feel like you’re moving backwards, but if you are in Christ, you can trust God to fulfill His will for your life as you seek to obey Him in whatever circumstances you’re stuck in right now. We work out our salvation, pressing forward, because He is willing and working in us (see Phil. 2:12)
“Don’t lose heart” is what I’m preaching to myself during this quarantine sanctification. The ugly parts sting with their surfacing, but inside something good is happening.
“Though out outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:16-18).
We can’t track sanctification like we can other measurable things in life. And truly, I’m beginning to think that when we’re most discouraged by our sin, God is working something good. The more we see it, the more He helps us to fight it. When you rise to meet the day that looks like yesterday and tomorrow and next Tuesday, keep looking to Christ. God will finish what He’s started (Phil. 1:6), and I guess it’s not really that surprising that He’s using the closing in of solitude and isolation to make us more like Jesus.
More and more.
I'm beginning to think that when we're most discouraged by our sin, God is working something good. The more we see it, the more He helps us to fight it. Share on XGlenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
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