What It Means to be Sanctified
It is God’s will for all of us to fully become the people who He created us to be. In order for that to happen, we must choose to follow Him and His desires over our own. We must choose to listen to His voice over the voices of fear and selfishness. Because God created us to be in relationship with Him, it is impossible to fully become who we were created to be without Him. The process of becoming that person is called sanctification.
The pursuit of sanctification is crucial to every believer’s life. It is important to note that sanctification is a journey, not a singular event. It is not a binary switch (either you are or are not sanctified), but rather it is a staircase. You become more fully sanctified the higher you climb.
Some think that, the more sanctified that you are, the more you have of God. This is not true. The moment that you dedicate your life to Jesus, you have full access to God. He is 100% dedicated to you and your spiritual wellbeing. In reality, the more sanctified that you are, the more God has of you. Following the journey of sanctification requires deeper and deeper levels of surrender to Him. The more access that God has to you, the more sanctified you will become.
Fully surrendering yourself to God is like a cruise ship slowly sinking into the water. The ship represents you, the water represents God, and the air represents the parts of you that have not yet fully surrendered to Him. When you first dedicate your life to Christ, the ship begins to sink, but there are still areas within you — like pockets of air — that resist being submerged. As time goes on, the water penetrates deeper and deeper, but small pockets of air can still persist.
The process of sanctification is letting go of those air pockets and letting the water fill every part of you. That takes work. You must search all the rooms inside of you for pockets of air. Sometimes, small pockets can hide in rooms that you did not know existed. Other times, you may think a room is fully filled with water, only to later find that air has found its way back into that room.
For example, you may declare that you are done with pride and surrender it to God. But almost immediately, the subtle temptation to feel pride about having made that decision creeps in. Without vigilance, that pride — like air — can return, and we must once again choose surrender.
We must be constantly vigilant, renewing our minds daily and choosing God over everything else (Romans 12:2). We must keep watch over ourselves, dedicating ourselves to surrendering ourselves to God’s will. If we are passive, air can and will seep back into those rooms.
This sounds like a daunting task for us to accomplish all on our own. The good news is, we are not alone. When we give our lives to Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells within us and empowers us (John 14:26). He gives us the supernatural ability to go into deeper levels of surrender. He guides us on the journey of sanctification. He tells us what we need and shows us where to go in order to keep the air out of our rooms.
Take a moment to reflect on What parts of your life are still holding onto air? What are some practical steps you can take right now to invite God into those areas and continue the journey of sanctification?
