What is Sanctification?

The word sanctification means to 'be made holy' or 'to set apart.'  Sometimes we gloss over this important part of Christian living, but maybe we need to take a closer look at sanctification and examine our lives to see how we measure up.

The term 'holiness' appears in the Bible 43 times. Here are a few notable verses in the New Testament:

Luke 1:75 In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.

Romans 6:19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

2 Corinthians 7:1 Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Ephesians 4:24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

1 Thessalonians 4:7 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.

Hebrews 12:10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

The word sanctified (or some variation) appears 141 times in the Bible!

Why do we spend so little time examining this part of scripture?  What does this tell us about the importance that God places on sanctification and holiness?

The truth is, our God is holy.  No man can approach God without being holy. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, He is able to wipe away the penalty of sin, cleanse us from sin, and enable us through the power of the Holy Spirit to be sanctified unto God.

Romans 6:22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Galatians 5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

If we are born of God, we love Him; we want to abide with Him, imitate Him, and serve Him. Let this be the day that we put aside the things that displease the Lord and strive for the things that bless the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

24 Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.

25 Brethren, pray for us.

26 Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss.

27 I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.

28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

Living for Jesus ...

Susan

Seed Sprouts

Never underestimate the power of a seed!

Recently, I bumped into a lovely lady. She hugged me and told me what a wonderful worship leader my son is, and how proud I must be, as a mother....and so blessed. I beamed!! Yes I am immensely proud of my son, but even more immensely blessed as I watch my son grow in faith to be a remarkable young man of God. In fact, I believe my son has an anointing yet to be revealed. I have had this confirmed over the years by many people.

But in that moment, after this lady spoke, something very significant occurred to me. You see, it was this very same lady, who 20 years ago, led me to The Lord! She was on the pastoral care team, which in those days didn't have such a fancy name!

This lady would visit me each week and all she really did was love me. I say this because she put up with a lot on those visits! Apart from having to listen to the troubles and woes of a struggling single mother, she also had to put up with the cigarette smoke! She would speak to me so kindly as she shared the gospel with me. She seemed to look past all my imperfections, and I truly believe, her acceptance of me as a person is what truly showed me the love of Christ. To reach me, God sent the best person for the job. It had to be one with just the right characteristics for this particular moment!

As I backtrack even further, I come to a time in my teens, when I was first introduced to the concept of a God who was more than some abstract being in the sky. I got "saved", though I didn't have a clue what that really meant! I was just excited to be part of this very different church, having grown up in the Church of England environment!

During this brief period, something stands out, that I believe was another "seed" sown. My brother in law and his sister often sang during church. He played guitar as well. I remember an occasion where I sang with them, and the song, "For Those Tears I Died", had such an impact on me, that those lyrics were somehow never forgotten, despite my turning my back on this God who loved me relentlessly. Oddly enough, the song would stir up an emotion in me that I never quite understood, until I gave my life to Christ in my early thirties!

Often we panic at the thought of sharing the gospel. I for one, quake at the knees, knowing full well I am not gifted in evangelism! Yet the bible tells us to share the good news of the gospel. In Matthew 28:19 Jesus tells His disciples to go out and teach all nations. This applies to us as well, but of course we can't all be proficient in this task!

I think the most important thing to remember is that we don't do the saving! Only God does. It's God who prepares hearts, God who orchestrates who crosses our path at a given moment. A friend who is a taxi driver, was recounting recently of a man who rode in his taxi. Apparently this man was suicidal, so my taxi driver friend broached the subject of faith, and told this man about Jesus. The man appeared aggravated by this and retorted that he wasn't interested in religion. My friend was disappointed that he couldn't help this man. He felt a bit of a failure as a Christian. He shouldn't though! For all he knows, a seed may have been sown. Perhaps somewhere down the track, that sown seed will be watered & fed by other followers of Christ. Of course there is a possibility that this man would reject Christ even then. But it isn't for us to know. Our job is to remain obedient and do God's will.

No matter how ineffectual we feel with our two loaves and fishes, God could take those and multiply them a thousandfold! Nothing out of the ordinary for Him!

I doubt if this lady who visited me, wondered what the outcome would be for me, years down the track. Her task was to minister to me and share the good news of Christ. She may have felt her contribution to be very little......yet here we are twenty years later. She had no idea, as I did either that way down the track, this young woman she ministered to would become a woman, passionately devoted to following Christ, stepping out of that comfort zone doing You Tube videos, or writing blogs or standing up for her faith in the midst of derision! And the little toddler playing with Lego would be a worship leader, a young man earnestly following Christ, a young man with an amazing servant heart, who wants nothing more than to walk in the will of his God.

From little things, big things grow!

Don't Worry!

On a prayer walk, I was meditating on worrying.
It is the opposite of faith.

Download the Podcast here:  Don't Worry! 

Wasted opportunities

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. - Revelation 3:20

I don't know about you guys, but I've missed a number of opportunities in my life, many of which I regret even today, has it been out of fear, shyness, personal pride, wrong timing, or some other cause that was directly under my control.

Yes, because it's no use crying over spilled milk over things that ran out of our control, so, if I missed alleged opportunities because of a third party, what can I do, but if I lost because of something stupid I did, or because I was lazy, for instance, I cannot blame anyone other than me.

I remember when I was still starting my undergraduate studies in computer science, back in 1998, or a year, maybe a year and a half before there was websites that do price comparison among the, at the time, incipient computer stores websites that were still a novelty on the Internet here in Brazil, such as our version of Bizrate or Nextag (here Buscapé and Bondfaro), a colleague of mine and I did a partially operational prototype of a search engine that did price comparison in several virtual stores that ran back then for a project of an academic discipline, that received plenty of compliments by our professor because it was innovative and because of it's overall quality. 

However, the project remained that way, only a prototype that never aired, never became a product.

A little while later these two websites starred here, and I even made a comment with this fellow student about our work and how they were very like the idea we had had, but we also did nothing about it and it stayed that way.

A few years later, one of those websites was sold by some million dollars, and my opportunity of becoming wealthy stayed as a mere recollection.

We all miss opportunities in our lives, that's an unfortunate fact of which we have nothing to be proud of, and even if we struggle really hard against it, one way or the other we may be victims of "fate", of ourselves if we are really honest.

I remember at least a couple times I had a crush on some girl back at college, and that person on me, at the same time, and, however, nothing actually happened between us, and only much later on, when we both felt nothing about one another, was that when we came to know what happened, and we had nothing else to do but to pity it.

That not to say about the times that I had a crush on someone and the person nothing, and voila, sometime later I found myself on the opposite corner, that person had a crush on me and I felt nothing.

I use to say that we're all gifted with opportunities, some people more than others, some better, some worse, and sometimes it comes to us the opportunity of a lifetime, in whatever way possible, and we're better be prepared for it, eyes and ears wide open to identify it as such, grab that opportunity and not let go of it, so that we do not regret it later and for the rest of our lives.

Regarding opportunities, one of the things that causes me surprise, astonishment and even sadness, is how people waste the opportunities of a relationship with God.

That's right, because it doesn't really matter if it's within or outside a religious environment, sometimes we take Jesus' sacrifice for granted by saying "not now, maybe later", we don't want a commitment, nothing serious, we think that God is someone who's gonna spoil our fun and that we don't wanna "miss our youth", as if enjoying a relationship with our Father meant missing on something instead of winning, actually.

We kinda take that opportunity as forever, as if the door was to remain always open for us to have this relationship with God, forgetting ourselves that if Christ knocks on our door waiting for us to open it, his huge patience may one day come to an end, as it is written on the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13) in which the ones that did not answer because they were not ready, and because they did not recognize the relevance, the importance of that opportunity, ended up staying outside of the wedding party, all alone, crying in the dark.

Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. - Isaiah 55:6

God offers us today the opportunity of our lives, opportunity to come back from wherever we are towards his arms of love, to receive his forgiveness, his comfort, his friendship.

Are we wasting that opportunity also?

Let's not be caught by surprise, nor unprepared, or as Scripture says on the book of Hebrew, if we will hear his voice today let's not harden our hearts as it was at the time of the Pharaoh of Egypt and of the people who walked in the desert, on the contrary, let's open that door with diligence and ask Jesus in to have supper with us, and to sit at the main spot at the table, in a way that we can listen to Him speaking in a very personal, intimate way to our heart.

My prayer today, based on everything above, is that we may seize every good opportunity life, God, gives us every day, of which the most important is a relationship of intimacy with Him by his son Jesus.

God bless.

I had a nightmare

I had a dream.

With this statement Martin Luther King Jr. began his most well-known speech, which some say was even plagiarized.

Yesterday, I had a nightmare.

I dreamed that instead of a Facebook page, I had a Sinbook page, that in lieu of being a social relationship website, was a historical record of all my sins, the damage I’d caused, the people I’d offended, but a public record, not a private one, only shaped as a social network, including Instagram like pictures of all my sordid moments, all shared, liked and full of comments.

I felt naked and ashamed.

Pretty much as Adam when he found himself a sinner.

Actually, my feeling was more like panic, as someone who was caught red-handed doing something no one was supposed to know, or like somebody who’s being humiliated or has gone through a really traumatic and fearsome situation.

Then I woke up, pretty scared, sweating cold, and suddenly it came to my mind that the blood of Jesus cleanses me of all sins.

It was like someone erased all my Internet browsing history, deleted my profile from that website, and I could start something from scratch, only better.

I could no longer feel the weight of guilt and shame, and could go back to sleep really calmed, knowing that all my sins have been forgiven on the cross, and that God threw them on the sea of oblivion, wherever that is.

Building Your Testimony

When you hear the word testimony, what comes to your mind?

Some people might think of a courtroom and a trial where witnesses give their testimonies. 

Some people might think of an advertisement with people sharing their experience with a certain product.

When it comes to "faith", testimonies are usually publicly spoken to an audience to confirm true conversion.

Unfortunately many Christians who share their testimony of the amazing, miraculous and even practical ways they came to Christ tend to leave their testimony on the shelf.  This is a tendency we all have, we all want to be comfortable and then carry on with life as usual.  Believing becomes more of a memory than a lifestyle.

In John 3:16 

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."

The verse talks about believing, and this verb tense in the original Greek text literally means to continue in believing and the following word "have" keeps the same element of "continue having eternal life."  Without belief we cannot be connected to eternal life that is from Jesus. 

Jesus talked about abiding in Him, comparing Himself to a vine. John 15:5

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

Branches that are not connected to the source of the plant wither and die. Their life runs out, but those that stay connected stay alive.

Jesus is giving us a clear picture of how to stay alive spiritually and how believing in Him continually is how we are to stay connected and bare much fruit.

So what does this have to do with testimonies? 

Well, if we are not bearing good spiritual fruit and not exercising our faith in the Kingdom of God, we may only have our conversion testimony.  And that may be a powerful story but it is not meant to be the end. The apostle Paul had an awesome testimony about his encountering Jesus on the road to Damascus but he was adamant about pursuing the call and following the leading of the Holy Spirit.

1 Thessalonians 1:4,5  Acts 16:9

The words of the Old Testament speak of people building altars to The Lord as a testimony of the encounter with God.  These altars were places of testimony, their physical presence existed to invoke a memory of the past.

Just a few examples.

Genesis 8:20- Noah

Exodus 17:15- Moses

Genesis 33:20 - Jacob

So when we abide, believing in Jesus' leading through the unction of the Holy Spirit, we are building up our testimony. Our stories of faith become a heritage for our children and a witness to the world that He lives in us.  When our testimonies are shared they help shape the future leaders of tomorrow.  So build them strong and make them bold.  Make them a living testimony!

It is time for His disciples to build their testimonies on the Rock, as Jesus said in Luke 6:46

46“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? 47As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like.48They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. 49But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation.

For times of trouble will come and a strong testimony will stand.

For it is written in Revelation 12:11

“And they (the saints) were victorious by the blood of The Lamb and by the word of their testimony and they did not love their lives unto death.”

Be blessed and pursue the greater things that He has for you.  

Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 6:19-34

Conrad and Susan continue the study of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:19-34)

*What does it mean to lay up treasures in heaven?
*The light of the body is the eye
*No man can serve two masters
*Taking no thought for Tomorrow
*Developing a deep rooted love for God

You can download this teaching here:  http://goo.gl/9ycCc