Are You Being Sanctified?

I hear a lot of people claiming that if we just call on Jesus that we will be saved for eternity and that nothing can take that away from us no matter how we live our lives from that moment forward. Yes, we must call on Jesus, but that is not the whole picture. We must turn away from our sins (repent) and follow Jesus in obedience, and we must continue in those walks of faith until the very end or salvation is not ours, and neither is eternity in heaven.

 

I am reading in Hebrews 10 this morning and this is what is standing out to me. It is talking about the old order under the law and the new order under grace, but it is saying that the old order was about yearly physical sacrifices and offerings. But in talking about the new order Jesus said, “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.” Amen! Jesus did away with all the Old Covenant sacrifices via his death on that cross but he did not abolish obedience to God. He upheld obedience to the Lord.

 

“For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).

 

Do you see what this is saying here? Jesus Christ did what was necessary in order to secure salvation from sin and eternity with God for “those who are being sanctified.” We must be in that process of sanctification, of being made holy until the very end, either until we die or until Jesus returns. And it means to be separate (unlike, different) from the world because we are being made into the likeness of Christ, if we are, indeed. We are being sanctified when we live according to God’s design and purpose for our lives.

 

"Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God" (2 Corinthians 7:1).

 

We must cooperate with God’s work of grace in our lives. It is not automatic just because we profess faith in Jesus. The Christian life involves daily dying with Christ to sin and to self and walking with Jesus in obedience to his commands in holiness and in righteousness, to the praise and glory of God. Yes, Jesus provided the way for us to be saved and to be made holy, and we can only be saved and made holy by the grace of God, but we must submit to Christ as Lord and forsake our lives of sin and follow him in obedience.

 

And then the passage talks about how Jesus puts his laws on our hearts and he writes them on our minds, so the New Covenant is not lawlessness. So we are to hold fast the confession of hope without wavering and we are to consider how we may stir up one another to love and good works.

 

Hebrews 10:26-27 ESV

 

“For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.”

 

Do we get this really? By the way so many professers of faith in Jesus Christ  live their lives I would say that many people don’t get this. I certainly did not for a long while. That is no excuse, mind you, but this is just not being taught much at all these days. Most people are teaching a surface-level “faith” in Jesus which secures them heaven for eternity regardless of how they live their lives from that moment forward. But that is just not supported with Scripture. Scripture teaches the opposite of that, in fact.

 

We can’t just claim who we are in Christ and then live however we want in all sorts of wickedness and in immorality presuming upon God’s grace that it will always be there regardless of how we live. Yes, God’s grace does forgive our sins if we are genuinely repentant and if we cooperate with God’s work of grace in our lives in putting our sin to death and in raising us with Christ to walk in newness of life in him. But if we go on sinning deliberately and habitually against God we will face the wrath of God, not his salvation.

 

Hebrews 10:32-39 ESV

 

“But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For,

 

“’Yet a little while,

    and the coming one will come and will not delay;

but my righteous one shall live by faith,

    and if he shrinks back,

my soul has no pleasure in him.’

 

“But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”

 

Once Saved Always Saved is not a biblical doctrine. Our salvation is conditional on the conditions that our Lord laid out for it. We must turn away from our sins and then daily by the Spirit we must be putting to death the deeds of the flesh and following our Lord in obedience to his ways, in his power and strength. We must walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh, and we must not obey sin but God and his righteousness.

 

When we have done the will of God we may receive what is promised. For the Lord’s righteous one must live by faith, and if he shrinks back, God has no pleasure in him. For if we shrink back we will be destroyed, but if we walk by faith in obedience to our Lord, he will preserve our souls. For we don’t “get saved” and then heaven is now guaranteed us when we die regardless of how we live our lives on this earth. How we live matters for eternity. For if we live to please the flesh, we will die in our sins, but if we live to please God, then we have the hope of eternal life with God.

 

[Lu 9:23-26; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Tit 2:11-14; Rom 12:1-2; Col 3:5-10; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-11; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Heb 10:26-27; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Matt 7:21-23; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15; Eph 2:8-10; Heb 12:1-2; Jn 6:44; 2 Pet 1:1; Rom 8:24; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 1:18; Ac 26:18]

 

Sweet Beulah Land

 

By Squire Parsons

 

I'm kind of homesick for a country

To which I've never been before.

No sad goodbyes will there be spoken

For time won't matter anymore.

 

I'm looking now, just across the river

To where my faith, shall end in sight

There's just a few more days to labor.

Then I will take my heavenly flight.

 

Beulah Land I'm longing for you

And some day on thee I'll stand

There my home shall be eternal

Beulah Land, sweet Beulah Land

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW8W7RXg6AA

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