Sanctify!

W.B Godbey, a Kentucky Methodist pastor in the 1800s gives us this advice as to steps we take to be sanctified:

Throw away everything that is wrong or doubtful [that is, not of any clear value to the disciple]

Lay yourself with all your possessions, plans and aspirations, unreservedly on God's altar.

Believe "the altar sanctifies the gift." You are the gift, so it sanctifies you. If you have faith to be sanctified, you are sanctified. Just now trust Jesus to save you from all sin and trust Him to keep you pure.

Godbey, "On Christian Perfection."

This is reckless abandon! This is full trust and reliance--"trust Jesus to save you from all sin and keep you pure."

Not you, not your work, but just Jesus! He must do all! And it is by faith!

See how simple this faith in sanctification is: "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in HIm shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him." (John 3:16-17)

God's quarrel is not with us, His creation, but sin in us. If we are to be saved through Jesus, not condemned, then He has come not simply to forgive past sin, and to look over "new" sin. Rather, He has come to forgive past sin and deal decisively with sin's power in our lives.

"For the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those of us who are _being_ saved, it is the power of God" (1 Cor 1:18). Amen!