Sanctifying Grace
If prevenient grace is the grace that prepares me to discover God's love, and justifying grace is the grace that washes over me and cleanses once I believe, God's sanctifying grace is the grace that removes the roots of sin and makes me a holy person as Jesus is holy.
Scripture says "To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy" (Jude 1:24). God is the one who keeps you from stumbling. It's grace, not your own effort.
The Power of Sanctifying Grace
I remember discovering the good news that sanctification is a gift of grace. I never really thought of it that way. I thought God forgave me by grace, but the work of becoming holy was up to me. So I tried and tried and tried to become a better person and kept failing.
Going back to God for more forgiveness and then just messing up again, eventually I thought I can't be holy. That's for the Pauls and Peters, not the Lukes. But then I began to see in God's Word that sanctification is not something I had to achieve. It's a gift of grace! It's a blessing from God's Spirit.
William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, wrote this about God's sanctifying grace: "Only God can take out of your heart the bad temper, pride, malice, revenge, love of the world, and all the other evil things that have taken possession of it and fill it with holy love and peace. To God you must go. This is the work of the Holy Ghost; He is the purifying fire; He is the cleansing flame; He only can sprinkle you with the water that purges the dross and takes away the sin; He only can make and keep you clean. What a blessing it is you have a God who is not only so mighty, but so willing to save."
To HIM you must go. HE ONLY can make and keep you clean. Now that's not to say you can just cruise. It's not to say you have no role to play. Of course, you still have to be disciplined, aware, self-controlled. But hear me friends: we do this from a foundation of God's sanctifying grace. We don't do these things in our own strength to try and be holy in our strength.
God's Transforming Work
The only time I have been able to live a holy life is when I firmly believed that God's sanctifying grace was at work in my life second by second. When I forgot that, I stumbled. When I held onto sanctifying grace, holiness came.
Have you come to this point friends? Have you come to the point where you say: "I want all of my life to be a holy offering to God, because He has been so kind to me"?
Let's quit holding onto our sins. Let's go to God today with our everything and say more and more sanctifying grace please Lord! Cleanse me and empower me to live a holy life.
That's a bold prayer. And if you pray it and believe in God's ability and willingness, He will do it. He will keep you from falling as Jude said, and enable you to live a truly holy and godly live. What a gift, the gift of sanctifying grace.
