PROGRESSIVE SANCTIFICATION

The idea of progressive sanctification (when a person acts more and more holy and sins less and less as they get older) is an idea made up by legalists who are trying to keep people under the law not under grace. The idea of progressive sanctification is nowhere to be found in the Word of God. Don’t confuse growing in grace for growing in holiness. A believer does grow in love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness and faith. There are differing degrees of all of those fruits of the Spirit. But there are no degrees of holiness. We are either holy or unholy. There is no middle ground. The believer is not made holy by our works. Christ IS our holiness. “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (I Cor. 1:30). If you would see your holiness, don’t look to your works, look to Christ who is our holiness. If Christ is our sanctification, we are holy!

Pastor

We all want mountain-top experiences. But nothing grows on the mountain top. The higher the mountain, the thinner the air and the more likely dizziness is. Far better for us to live here below in the fertile valley, even if here we must deal with darkness, dampness, and dirt.

Pastor Don Fortner

STRIVE TO ENTER IN

The Lord said in Matthew 11:12, “The kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” While it is true that salvation is a work of God in which we are passive, men dead in sins do not actively seek the Living God. It is equally true that when God does give a dead sinner life, that one who was dead in sins becomes very active. He “strives to enter in at the straight gate” (Matt. 7:13). He earnestly “seeks God with all his heart.” He is “importunate”((insistence) in prayer (Luke 11:8). He seeks to “crucify the flesh” and “through the Spirit to mortify the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8:12-13). He is willing to “endure all things for the elect’s sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus” (II Tim. 2:10). The rest that the believer enters is not one of laziness, apathy, or indifference. If our belief in sovereign grace has led us to excuse our sin, justify our disobedience, dampen our enthusiasm, become indifferent to our responsibility, or make our love and zeal grow cold…. we have not understood sovereign grace. While all of our former religious activity does need to be killed, may God deliver us from using His grace to have a passive attitude that is not taught in Scripture!

Pastor Todd Nibert

HE HATH MADE HIM TO BE SIN - 2 Corinthians 5:21

A most amazing statement—The sinless one was made to be sin. God made the perfectly innocent One to be sin for us. I bless His holy name and adore Him that He is not unjust in order to be merciful; that He does not spare the guilty in order to indulge His gentleness. Every transgression and disobedience has its just recompense of reward. I bless His holy name that to vindicate His justice, He determined that, while a free pardon should be provided for all believers, it should be grounded upon an atonement, which satisfied all the requirements of His holy law.

Scott Richardson

So great is the depravity of unregenerate man that, although there is nothing that he needs more than the Gospel, there is nothing that he desires less.