sanctification is hard

As a follow-up question to “sanctification,” my web writing professor asked me, basically, “why don't we see more sanctified people?"

I have to agree with him that this world is conspicuously lacking in those who could be called sanctified. However, In John 17:16-17, Jesus prays, “They [meaning us whom have accepted Jesus as our Savior] are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”

This has powerful implications. It means that in fact we are sanctified. We are set apart. We are free from sin's power. Yet, we can still make the choice to fall into sin. We still choose to live apart from truth, which is God's word. This is life's great struggle.

So why do we see so many people who appear to be living in denial of their sanctification?

Personally, I think its because this world is hard! We live in a place that chews you up and spits you out. This week on campus, there was a sort of time of “revival” in which people spontaneously started sharing their sins with one another, and gathering around each other in love. What struck me the most about this time was not the things people confessed, but the terrible suffering they had gone through.

People are broken. They have been abused, kicked down, laughed at, and spit on.

In many ways, we are continually struggling with sin as a result of our environment. To go back to the mountain-climbing analogy, climbing Mount Everest is terrible. It blows my mind why people like to do that sort of thing. It is not fun. It is freezing. The oxygen debilitates their bodies. The wind shoves them on their face. Each step is an exercise in agony. If it were possible to observe these climbers without seeing the gruesome conditions of their environment, we might say, “Why are they moving so slow? These people are pitiful.” However, when we see the mountains of snow, impossible inclines, and imagine the cold, our response is, “These people are heroes.”

Another great illustration I heard from Cy Rogers is that when we observe people in their efforts to be sanctified, it appears they are continually going in a circle: they seem to be making progress, but then come back again to the same sin.


However, this perspective is limited. If we are able to see the entire picture, as God sees it, we would see that in fact these people are spiraling upward. They may come back to the sin and struggle with it, but they are moving upward toward a holier life. Sanctification is possible. In fact, we have been freed from sin and are sanctified by God's sacrifice. Yet, we still must struggle against the elements, brave the cold, and make the decision to press onward. To take the next agonizing step forward. To ignore the world that clings its icy fingers to our feet, desperately grasping to pull us back down, and instead steady our focus upward, on God, and trust fully in Him.