Sanctification

 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12


1 Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; 2 for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. 7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. 8 Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.

9 But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; 10 and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; 11 that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, 12 that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.

 

Did you know that the purpose of God’s salvation isn’t just to save you from hell and get you into heaven? His priority is to shape you into the image of Jesus (Rom. 8:29). But God doesn’t do everything for us—we have to participate in the process with Him. Sadly, however, a lot of Christians have a passive attitude that tolerates sin and makes excuses.

When you got saved, you began your walk with Jesus, but you also stepped into spiritual warfare with Satan. The last thing our enemy wants is someone who loves the Lord and tells others about Him.

Yet many believers don’t live a holy life. In fact, some of them look and act just like the unbelieving world. In today’s passage, sexual immorality is one area of compromise that the apostle Paul addressed specifically. But in truth, we should abstain from anything that interferes with godly living.

Have you allowed something in your life that shouldn’t be there? If so, distance yourself from it now. You don’t want a thread of sin to become a rope, then a chain, and finally a cable that traps you in a stronghold. Turn back to the Lord, and let your sanctification continue.

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