Hope for When Sanctification Feels Slow
You Are In Process
The reality is that sanctification isn’t defined as necessary; it’s simply defined as a reality. If you have been justified, you are being sanctified. You’re in the process. The process may be slow, you may be making it slower, you may be entertaining sin in your life that slows you down, but every true believer will manifest sanctification. What I mean by that is this: if you have genuinely been regenerated and born again, it’s going to show up in your life. Ephesians 2 says this:
We have been saved by grace through faith . . . unto good works which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. (Eph. 2:8–10)
Sanctification
John MacArthur
Veteran pastor John MacArthur makes the case that Jesus’s passion for his people is sanctification and encourages pastors to revolve their ministry around the increasing sanctification of their members through preaching and discipleship.
That’s why John says, If you don’t love your neighbor, if you don’t love the Lord, if you don’t desire the fellowship of the saints, if you’re not dealing with sin in your life, you’re not a Christian.
Sanctification isn’t a necessity, it’s a reality.
Your New Reality
Sanctification isn’t a necessity, it’s a reality. By your obedience to the Lord, your time in the word, and your time in prayer using the means of grace, you decide the speed at which that sanctification takes place. But it is taking place if you are genuinely a regenerate person.
You can’t be born again and not manifest the evidence of that; this is who you are. If any man being in Christ is a new creation, all things pass away and new things come. You’re a new creation. So sanctification is as much a reality as glorification; it’s just the process that is affected by how obedient and willing we really are.
John MacArthur is the author of Sanctification: God’s Passion for His People.
Related Articles
Are You Frustrated by Others’ Spiritual Immaturity?
The Holy Spirit guarantees that he is at work. He will continue to be at work until it is completed on the day of Christ Jesus.
Jesus Prayed for Your Sanctification
On the night of Jesus’s betrayal, before he prayed for himself, he prayed for his own.
God Blesses Holiness, Not Pastoral Talent
If you’re not cleansed from the things that corrupt your life, you’re not a vessel fit for the Master’s use.
Pastor: Is Your Holiness a Priority?
There's diminishing interest in holiness and godliness among this generation of younger pastors because of pragmatism.