If you are a true Christian, you have a deeper responsibility than just going to heaven one day. You have a responsibility today and every day to become more like the One in whom you say you follow. The technical term for this is sanctification, and it means to be holy or set apart. Therefore, our salvation is just the initial start of the journey. The daily sanctification process is now what is of greatest importance, and we need to know this fact and surrender to the process. The question isn’t why we should do this; it is how?
Jesus came to show us the pathway of sanctification through the knowledge of the truth, repentance of sin, and practical application of the principles of His word to our daily life. The Holy Spirit works in the believer’s
heart to transform him or her into the image and likeness of Jesus, who is sinless. It is a process of transformation that requires some time; it does not happen in one day, or after praying a prayer of commitment to God.
As stated above, that is merely the beginning of the believer’s walk with the Lord and the first step into the sanctification process. When you make a decision to follow God, you join yourself to Him and are adopted into
His family, but to experience the family dynamics and benefits of being in His family, you have to be faithful to Him all your life.
We conform to the image of Christ in holiness; we are being changed into His image from glory to glory, namely from victory over sin to the next victory over sin, little by little, as the Holy Spirit leads us. God has provided us with a plan to successfully accomplish this in His Word.
The book of Romans is a powerful book of the Bible. In this letter, Paul goes into great detail about the deep theological issues facing all of us. Paul tells us about the person of Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit, God’s plan for our lives, and what conforming to the image of His Son looks like. What stands in our way from this process is often
our own complacency and apathy towards change. When it comes to a believer’s walk, there is a battle between ordinary and extraordinary, and too many choose to settle for ordinary. This is not what God has intended nor what glorifies Him.