Truth Matters from Pastor Dean, June 13th 2023

Have you ever thought about Jesus’ rather terse response to Peter in John 21:21-22?  

“21 When Peter saw him (John), he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” 22 Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”

Peter was insisting God should deal with John the same way God would deal with him.  The point Jesus was making is this:  God does not sanctify us in some monolithic way.  The process of sanctification will be different for me and different for you.  The reason is twofold:  1) The effects of our sin nature are different in each of us.  We are individual sinners...we are weak in personal ways and God will deal with our sinful uniqueness in His sanctification process.  2) There are kingdom reasons why God sanctifies us uniquely.  First, God will manifest His glory in bringing us uniquely to Christlikeness.  Second, our sanctification process lets us know how deeply personal and individual our relationship with Christ Jesus is.  “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”  (Romans 8:16). 

Today’s My Utmost for His Highest reminds us of how unique and individual our personal sanctification journeys are:

“There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you— and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.

If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, “Come,” then He will continue to say, “Come,” through you. You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ’s “Come.” That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus.

Have I come to Him? Will I come now?”

God loves us as His children and He knows we are all individuals with individual foibles and weaknesses as we battle with our sin natures.  My foibles are probably not your foibles.  Don’t expect your sanctification process to look the same as mine.  The result is the same (Christlikeness), but the process is not.  The key requirement for all of us is this:  “The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ.”  My prayer for you and me this day is this:  Lord we hear Your rebuke loud and clear “...what is that to you? You follow me!”  We all are in the process of becoming more like Christ.  May we be encouraging to one another as we each struggle with our sin natures in our unique, individual ways.  And may each of us be totally surrendered to You.  Amen.

Reminds me of one of my favorite songs:

Lord, I come to You
Let my heart be changed, renewed
Flowing from the grace
That I found in You
Lord, I've come to know
The weaknesses I see in me
Will be stripped away
By the power of Your love

Hold me close
Let Your love surround me
Bring me near
Draw me to Your side
And as I wait
I'll rise up like the eagle
And I will soar with You
Your Spirit leads me on
In the power of Your love

Walk with the King today and be a blessing.