Sanctification

Photo Above: Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Wikimedia Commons

Sanctification

We see from the Scriptures that God chooses to use people to bring forward the Gospel in the world. God wants to use his people to bring forth the good news. We also see from the Scriptures, history, and experience that our strength of witness individually and corporately is greatly diminished or strengthened based on how we live our lives according the gospel.

A few years ago I heard a sermon from Ravi Zacharias where he spoke about a time when he met up with Billy Graham and some of his staff for a conference. In a meeting before the conference with the staff an aide to Billy Graham mentioned to everybody that he had just found one of the most profound and helpful articles on memory he had ever read. The aide wanted everybody to read the article so he started walking around the room passing out printed versions of the article and as he got to Ravi he said “sorry Ravi it turns out I don’t have enough right now, I will get you a copy before you leave for the airport.” Ravi turned to him, and said “no, that won’t be necessary you already gave me one at the airport when you picked me up.” Everybody heard the comment, started laughing, and one by one, started giving back their articles to the aide.

In the same way people are much less attracted to hearing about the gospel from you when you don’t live it out. Let us follow Paul’s charge to the Roman Church “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good acceptable and perfect.”