Hope for the Slowly Sanctified

Do you ever look at your life and think, “This isn’t who I thought I’d be by now?”

Maybe you thought you’d be more faithful, more studied, more patient, more self-controlled, wiser, holier, kinder. Maybe you hoped that after all these years some of those things you really hate about your old self had stayed dead instead of resurrecting a thousand times over. How can I have walked with Jesus for such a long time and still be this version of myself? This old man-new man business is harder than I thought it would be.

I am memorizing 1 Peter and studying the book of Acts at the same time. It’s been a true joy to observe the metamorphosis of the apostle Peter. We like him because in the gospels he’s impulsive and salty, fiercely loyal while also cowardly two-faced. We identify with him. But we see how much Jesus loves him and forgives him when loyalty mattered most. On the other side of Peter’s betrayal, Jesus restores him and gives him kingdom work to do. It gives us hope for ourselves. Maybe He can use me, too. The Peter of the gospels is the one we see ourselves in. We want to walk on water, but we lack the faith to ride out the waves.

When you get to Acts, you see a different Peter. He’s probably still got some of that impulsivity, but it’s tempered with wisdom. The resurrection of Jesus has changed Peter. That zealous passion is tested and found true on the other side of the resurrection. He will make Christ known no matter the cost. The religious leaders at the temple tell him repeatedly to stop preaching Christ, and Peter doggedly defies them every time. He boldly proclaims the gospel. He rebukes sin in the church. He’s beaten and jailed but counts it joy to have suffered for Christ. This is a different Peter.

In his first epistle, you see the wisdom born of his suffering. Everything is a sacrifice worth giving for the sake of making Christ known. There are some things in this life you simply can’t learn apart from necessary suffering for a “little while,” but even our trials can’t compare with the glory that will be revealed when Christ returns. Peter is full of faith and hope, his heart fixed on the day when Jesus comes back. It’s a little hard to reconcile this Peter with the one who cut off a guy’s ear in Gethsemane, with the one who tried to turn Jesus from the path to the cross, with the one who sank in the sea though its Maker was right there with him. But here’s what’s happened to our salty fisherman: he spent years with Jesus. He learned from Him, listened to Him, watched Him. Peter witnessed Jesus’ transfiguration, death, resurrection, and ascension. He dropped his nets on the day Jesus called him, and the Lord initiated a metamorphosis that only comes from living closely to Christ.

Even the temple leaders—the ones so annoyed and irritated by his incessant gospel preaching—realized that the man who stood and connected the Old Testament prophecies to the carpenter’s son from Nazareth couldn’t have been so learned were it not for the fact that he “had been with Jesus.” I’ve noticed Peter’s inclination to refer to Jesus as the living stone, the cornerstone, chosen and precious. You see it in his sermon in Acts 4:11, and you see it in his writing in 1 Peter 2:4-6. What was it about Psalm 118:22 and Isaiah 28:16 that meant so much to him that he preached and wrote of those passages? Jesus. They were about Jesus and that knowledge had changed Peter’s life—it was Jesus all along.

The change in Peter seems quick to us as we turn the pages of our Bibles. Here he’s betraying Jesus and there he’s standing in the temple proclaiming the same name after being beaten and jailed. But it took years for Peter to be sanctified, same as us. His metamorphosis from sinner to saint, from old man to new man, from shedding his old ways to embracing his new identity in Christ—it took time. Sanctification is a slow process, but the key here is exposure to Christ. It is not simply the passage of time which makes us more like Jesus. It’s living closely to Him that in time makes us like Him. Let us take comfort from Peter’s sanctification. You might have hidden in cowardice when you could have proclaimed Christ, but today is a new day to be who you really are in Jesus. You may not be the version of yourself you’d hoped to be by now, but as you spend time listening to the voice of Jesus in Scripture, in prayer, in fellowship with His people, you will become like Him. Slowly. But surely.

Here’s some hope for the slowly sanctified: walking with Christ will change you. Keep walking with Him. He will finish what He started.

Here’s some hope for the slowly sanctified: walking with Christ will change you. Keep walking with Him. He will finish what He started. Share on X

Photo by Aren Nagulyan on Unsplash