Entire sanctification

Sanctification -- one guy's testimony

Perhaps you are turned off by the words "sanctification" or "holiness." Maybe it brings to your mind a particular style of clothing, or a lengthy list of taboos. Perhaps it reminds you of some person with a "holier than thou" legalism who thought it was their personal calling to correct every one else's shortcomings. Yet no matter how much the idea has been abused or sidetracked, we cannot escape the fact that the concept of holiness or sanctification appears more than 600 times in the Bible. But arguing about how many times the idea appears in the Bible will probably not lead anyone to hunger for this deeper walk with God. I have found that a personal testimony is perhaps the most powerful way to present this everyday walk with Christ. So here goes mine:

BEFORE A PERSON IS A CHRISTIAN, they are a slave to sin (Romans 6:17). They are under the dominion of darkness (Colossians 1:13) and really want to sin. It is natural to sin and disobey God for the non-Christian. Sure, God's "prevenient grace" is always there drawing the non-Christian toward good, but in spite of God's drawing, the non-Christian habitually disobeys these longings for God. I put this in third person terms, because I personally came to Christ as a young child--even before the first grade. I had not “wandered far from God.” I had not lived a life of sin and then repented. Yet as a young child, at the end of a revival meeting, I sensed God calling me personally to Him and I responded.

I WAS SAVED. Some may scoff at an early experience of grace like mine, but I know that the first time I sensed God drawing me personally—and I responded. I responded to all the calling God had given me at that time. I was "saved" or "became a Christian" before I entered first grade. I didn't even know what technically was taking place at that time. Only much later I was able to know that at that very moment I was freed from the dominion of darkness and turned from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18). I didn't perceive it as a young child of course. In fact, the "deliverance from a life of sin" for me was a deliverance from the alternate life I could have lived—had I not responded to God at age 4--and since.

I STILL FELL INTO SIN, but not as a willful habitual lifestyle. When I did sin it was not in rebellion to God--I never shook my fist in God's face and intended to sin (1 John 3:9). My new nature (Romans 8:15) brought into my heart a new desire—to be like Jesus Christ. I began following these urges and checks of the Holy Spirit even as a young child and my growth as a Christian commenced. I continued to respond to God's urging, prods, conviction as I grew through grade school and high school and continually grew stronger in the faith. Not that I always grew steadily. Sometimes there were plateaus and even setbacks like the stock market, but generally there was an upward trend in growth and fidelity to Christ.

EVENTUALLY I DISCOVERED A NEW PROBLEM. Granted, I had an inner drive to become like Christ. But I discovered another drive deep within me—a powerful desire to disobey God. I don't think I noticed these two desires in conflict as a child so much as when I entered my teen years. I began to wrestle to obey. Obedience no longer seems as natural as it seemed as a child. Thus I began a daily struggle. Sometimes I allied with my inner drive to obey God. At other times I voted with my drive to sin. I experienced gradual growth or "gradual sanctification" during my teen years and into my young adulthood, but my defeats and sin was too frequent. Two drives were in me: one to serve my old nature, the other to serve my new one. It was if I was in a powerful tug-of-war—my evil desires on one end, my desires for holiness on the other—and I was the rope!

I DESPISED THIS EVIL INCLINATION and sometimes wondered if I was really even saved at all. There were sins I just couldn't overcome. The Devil was mostly defeated in my life, but there were a few strongholds where he reigned supreme. A friend of mine at the time told me, "Claim assurance on the Word and expect to fall into sin; simply plead the blood." He said, "God can't see your sin--you are hidden in Christ--you will sin every day in word, thought and deed until you die--just rejoice that there is therefore now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus." He suggested I try "Spiritual breathing" daily confessing out my sins and inhaling the Spirit. He gave me no hope for deliverance, just a means of “dealing with it.”

BUT THAT DIDN’T SATISFY ME. Making peace with my sin seems to fall short of what the Bible promised. I began reading more in the Bible about God's call to obedient living--about God's call to love Him completely and the notion that if I truly loved Him I would obey his commands. I also read classic devotional writers and even the early church fathers and found there people talking about a "higher life" or a "deeper walk" or a "fully devoted life." Here were real people telling me about a life of obedience and devotion that was really possible from God. I became hungry for that life and started to seek it.

DURING ALL THIS TIME God continually made claims on new areas of my life. I usually surrendered (often after a long struggle) and occasionally I blatantly posted a "no trespassing" sign in an area, hoping God would go away from that area and leave me alone. (He would only for a while.) I sought something deeper from God. I came to be convinced there was "something more" even though I couldn't find it--whatever it was. I sometimes feared there was no hope for me--that I'd never be delivered from the constant battle within. I wondered at times if I was simply destined to a life of spiritual part-time victory. But I kept seeking. I might not have had this sort of life myself, but I believed it existed. I had seen people live this sort of "wholly devoted life"--including my own father right in front of me for several decades. I hungered for a deeper work of Christ in my life. I sought it. I prayed. I journaled. I pled for God to do a deeper work. I was desperate. It made sense to me that God would want to clean up my heart's desires so that I would be wholly His. It made sense that God could do a spiritual miracle in my heart and head changing me to confirm to His will--not just to do His will, but to want to. Why would God command me to live a life He would not enable me to live? I kept seeking.

I SOUGHT DESPERATELY. I carefully made a total surrender of my “all to Jesus” —MY time, talents, money, future, reputation, friends, habits, life goals, thoughts, and a dozen other areas including one marked "unknown future areas." As an act of the will I made this total consecration to the Lord. I figured that once "I surrendered all" He would then respond by sanctifying me when I laid my "all on the altar."

BUT GOD DIDN'T ANSWER MY PRAYER. Not for a month. I kept seeking. Not for a year. I kept seeking. Indeed, God did not answer this prayer of mine for more than a decade—almost two decades. I desperately kept seeking "something more." I was convinced there was more to the Christian life than what I had. I was convinced that God had to perform something in my heart to make that higher life possible. So I kept seeking. But He didn't answer. Like the person seeking healing who gets no relief, I got discouraged, yet kept asking.

FINALLY I HAD AN ENCOUNTER WITH GOD. It may not seem that dramatic to you but it was for me. I was at a Campus Crusade convention in Denver Colorado. Sitting on the outdoor steps of what was than called the "International Hotel." On August 7, 1981 I met God. Rather I should say, "God met me."

NOTHING SPECTACULAR HAPPENED. At least I didn't notice anything. I had no feelings, no ecstasy, no tongues, no esoteric visions. Nothing. In fact I wasn't sure the experience was even that powerful at the moment. It wasn't until the next morning that I noticed a quiet yet powerful internal difference. I saw it as soon as I got up that day. I started keeping a personal journal again that day.

ONE MONTH LATER I knew what it was. God had answered my prayer. It was like I was walking on eggs—things were so different I was afraid I'd lose whatever it was that happened to me—that I'd quench or grieve the Holy Spirit. I felt like I was watching myself live life from a distance. I remember writing in my journal that month later, "I believe the Lord has in fact filled me with His Spirit--August 7, 1981--He really did it, I can tell."

GOD HAD DONE A "SECOND WORK OF GRACE" in my life that day. Some call this religious experience "Entire Sanctification" and others call it being "filled with the Holy Spirit," "baptized with the Holy Ghost, or "entering a deeper walk with God." I don't quibble over what to call it; I just know God can do this second work in the life of a believer--He did it for me.

THINGS WERE DIFFERENT AFTER THAT DAY. I had an immediate urgency for the lost that was totally alien to my Christian life before that. I'm still not the best evangelistic witness on the block, but I have had this inner urgency ever since that day to reach people by one means or another. But the most dramatic effect was a fresh power over sin. In one particular area of my life that had bound me for years, I was freed immediately. Immediately! Instantaneously. My heart desired 100% to please Christ. I loved Christ and His church in a new way. Loving Christ made it easy to obey Him. Somehow God had done something in my heart so that my hunger for obedience was consuming. Ever since that day I have had this consuming love for God and desire to obey Christ 100%. I can’t be satisfied with less than 100% obedience or 100% love. My thirst for every thought, word, and action to be absolutely pure has been unquenchable. I can't get over it. God changed who I was that day. It was as if I’d had new a genetic makeup installed.

I DON'T MEAN TO SAY I WAS NO LONGER TEMPTED. I think I have been tempted more. And I don't mean to mislead you into believing that I have never disobeyed the Lord again (God and my wife both know better.) But the times I have been tripped up by sin, it has not been premeditated, and immediately I have sensed a holy revulsion which resulted in immediate confession and restoration. And, I'm not saying that I do not fall short of the perfect standard set by Jesus Christ--I do—far short. Sure, I've got a long way to go to be completely conformed to His perfect image in practice. But I will attest that God performed a spiritual miracle in my heart that August day, a work which made the consuming passion of my heart to please Christ out of love for Him, and a power that enabled my obeying Him easier. I have come to believe that I can obey Christ exactly as much as I love Him. When seeking all those years I thought obedience was the problem. I came to discover that love is the real problem. I liked to say I loved Christ but disobeyed Him. God taught me that once I was able to love God completely I could obey Him likewise.

BUT THAT WASN'T THE END OF GROWTH. Rather it was a new impetus for growth. Though I transferred the "title deed" to all areas of my life to God, the Lord is still occupying new territories. The difference—I do not resist His claims--when He knocks, I surrender. That doesn’t mean I satisfy everybody else—I can’t respond to all their conviction—but I can to the Lord’s. In a sense I have become a "slave of Christ," just like a non-Christian might be a slave to sin. Since my passion is to a “wholly devoted follower of Jesus Christ” I am driven to think often of spiritual growth. This deeper walk with Christ—the obedient life—has been one of continual experiences of new light, conviction, and change. It is not a static life.

THE GREATEST SINGLE EVIDENCE of the sanctified life is not perfect living so much as perfect loving…resulting in a perfect desire. It is an unquenchable thirst for holiness...a willingness to sacrifice anything to become Christ-like. This desire can't be "worked up" or cultivated. It has to come from God Himself. It is a "work of grace" not a work of our own energy. While I admit that this kind of living is foreign to many average Christians today, I swear it is possible.

NOW, WHAT ABOUT YOU? Are you experiencing frequent defeats in your Christian life? Is there some sin that has such a grip on you that all your disciplined willpower has not been able to break these chains? Are you tired of living a half-hearted life with part time victory? Are you weary of a constant battle between your old self and your new self? If so, it might be time to look into this idea of sanctification, holiness, and the filling of the Spirit. But don't start seeking this life unless you are willing to seek it until you find it. For some folk, God gives this work in moment upon their asking. For others like me he delays the work for many years. Are you willing to seek God for years--until He fills you? If so, then why not start today.

By Keith Drury, 1982. Revised 1985, 1994, 2003. You are free to transmit, duplicate or distribute this article for non-profit use without permission.

Other writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.tuesdaycolumn.com