When God delivered the Israelites from out of Egypt (the “world system”), He then had them journey through the wilderness, and there He brought the Israelites through the process of taking “Egypt” out of them, bringing them through a transformation process so that they would be His representatives as a Holy nation.
If you understand that we have a fallen nature influenced by evil, you can understand the challenging process we need to go through of being sanctified, being made pure and holy in God. Until we learn to trust and experience the love of God in our heart, even though we are saved, we will still find ourselves being resistive to surrendering the ways of the flesh, as futile as they are, into full submission of living by the power of the Holy Spirit in us. We naturally can’t help but trust in logic, of what we think is right in our own eyes. God will patiently walk us through experiences that require faith in His ways that are not our ways.
This is a living relationship, and we need to give ourselves time to grow and develop trust in Him. Just remember that Satan is a liar who never stops accusing us. Anything negative and condemning is not from God, not one bit. The crucifixion of Christ confirms that, does it not (Rom. 8:1)?
The more you spend time with God through journaling, worshiping, praying, and meditating on His Word, communing with God in all of this by developing a sensitivity to His kind and gentle voice, the more you will understand and be able to trust in His Fatherly ways of raising you up as His child.
It is helpful to understand our fallen condition, often referred to as the “flesh” in the Bible, and how it is opposed to holiness, and how powerful it is to lure us away from walking in the way of holiness. Until we become filled with the Holy Spirit, we will not be able to discern this spiritual conflict operating in our soul. The ways of the flesh were first awakened in humanity and exercised through Adam and Eve when they were tempted by the serpent. They were awakened to the notion that they could be self-sufficient, and were given the opportunity to exercise the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. You can read a detailed description of these Godless qualities of the flesh in the writing of Pastor Mike Phillips, Sr. called “The Flesh and its Activities.”1 The more we become aware of God and His ways, the more evident the ways of our fallen nature will be noticed. Let us be discerning of this, for Galatians 5:24-25 declares “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit,” and we are motivated by the wonderful truth of 2 Peter 1:2-4 “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
No matter how many times you may trip by acting upon the fallen nature, your salvation is sealed by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13). Now you have incentive to act in confidence in your responsibility to do the right thing because to be filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit means you humbly understand the cost it took for you to be able to freely receive it, and also understand why the atonement of Christ was necessary. The New Testament Apostles had to remind the believers of this over and over again. That is how dark and powerful the nature of the flesh is apart from God. Now that we have tasted and seen how shallow and superficial it leaves us, the more we learn to trust in God and His love for us, the more we will rely on Him and put aside these childish ways and eventually become mature sons and daughters of God, displaying in our bodies and actions the Holy nature of God to those still living in darkness.
Nelsons New Illustrated Bible Dictionary defines the word sanctification as “The process of God’s grace by which the believer is separated from sin and becomes dedicated to God’s righteousness. Accomplished by the word of God (Jn. 17:7) and the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:3-4), sanctification results in holiness, or purification from the guilt and power of sin.”2
Lewis Sperry Chafer makes this distinction of how sanctification is used the Bible: “The Bible teaching in regard to sanctification, then, is: (1) that all believers are positionally sanctified in Christ “once and for all” at the moment they are saved. This Sanctification is as perfect as He is perfect. (2) All believers are being sanctified by the power of God through the Word, and this sanctification is as perfect as the believer is perfect. (3) All believers will be sanctified and perfected in glory into the very image of the Son of God.”3
It is God who sanctifies us through His Son and the work of the Holy Spirit (Jude 1 “… To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ:”; 2 Thess. 2:13 “But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth,”).
Yet there are commands in the Bible that suggest believers are responsible for making the sanctification process practical, such as Lev. 11:44 “For I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy…”; 1 Thess. 4:3-5 “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God…”; Rom. 8:13 “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”4
Now that we have been spiritually birthed into eternal life, a whole other way of living, we can see the need to develop a Christ-like character. In many ways the sanctification process can be compared to what the Bible refers to as a “refiner’s fire,” in which we are put through various trials that are necessary to expose the flesh nature and extinguish it for good with the guarantee we will walk out of the flames refined and purified. We have spent all of our lives depending on the security of the flesh, as unstable as it is, so it is natural that we will be resistive to give it up all at once. Think of how a child becomes distraught when the mother tries to take away their security blanket. You will be surprised how childish and stubborn you will react when the Holy Spirit convicts you of worldly pleasures and securities in order to help you move forward in your spiritual growth. Depending on how resistive you are, it can feel as if you are going through a “refiner’s fire!” The flesh is always resistive to the Holy Spirit, Gal. 5:16, 17 “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish,” but the more mature you become, the easier it is to let go of worldly things.
To explain the sanctification process in the typology of a refiners fire, I couldn’t have put it in better words than June Hunt in her article “A letter from June on Trials” in which she writes “In both the Old and New Testaments, we find numerous references to the refining of gold and silver . . . as a parallel of God’s refining us through painful trials. This unforgettable allegory is meant to help us understand the purpose beyond our pain—to conform us to the character of Christ. Clearly, we don’t develop Chris-like character all at once. Character is forged over time, especially through fiery trials. Indeed, God is our Refiner. Psalm 66:10 says, “For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver.”5 She goes on to beautifully describe the six stages of the breaking, the crucible, the dross, the heat, the purification and the reflection of the refining process.
Once we are able to understand the futility of the flesh and desire to break free from its influence, we can rest in the assurance of God’s promise of Philip. 1:6, “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;” and Philip. 2:13, “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”
Let this verse be an encouragement to you as you transform out of this world and into His kingdom: 1 John 5:3-5 “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”
“The evidences of regeneration are a correct belief in the doctrine of Christ, a relationship of love and trust with Him, and a life that shows victory over sin because of the work of God” –Bob DeWaay6
Notes
1. www.pacificrimbible.com/books/The%20Flesh%20And%20Its%20Activities.pdf
2. Nelsons New Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Pg. 1126
3. Systematic Theology by Lewis Sperry Chafer Vol. 6, Pg. 285
4. See Nelsons New Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Pg. 1126 for more details
5. www.hopefortheheart.org/july-2013-letter-from-june-on-trials/#ixzz3yY6iFX58