Tuesday, May 3, 2011

By God

DEVOTION
1 THESSALONIANS
BY GOD
1 Thess 5:23-24
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
NIV
There it is right up front and personal like. I cannot do it, I could never do it, I will never be able to do it, no matter how hard I try, no matter how diligent I am or become, I cannot make myself holy. It is only God himself who will sanctify or make my holy through and through or absolutely perfect. Does that mean I should not even try? How can I? I do not have to power to make myself perfectly holy. I can make every effort to live a clean upright life, keeping myself the best I can from failing or falling to some temptation, but it won’t work all the time, perfectly. I can make every effort to be righteous but that is all it is going to be, an effort, and then one that will fall short. So I am left with the simple truth that it is God and God alone who make me perfectly holy. He completes it with absolute perfection. He does that work in my spirit, my soul, and my body. He makes that part of me which will depart my body when I die, my spirit, who I really am holy and pure and blameless because of Jesus Christ, not because of what I do. Well it is because I accepted that provision he make on the cross, but that is all I could ever do to be holy in his sight. He makes my soul, or that part of me I represent to all others, my personality, my mind holy and acceptable to him. I cannot do that, I cannot make my mind, my thoughts, my conscience self holy and acceptable to him except through the cross of Christ. And my body, the whole of me, I cannot separate that part from the rest of me. I think at one time there were those who taught that. But God tell me he will also make my physical part holy and acceptable to him. All that I am, or will ever be is completely in the hands of God. And even I am not faithful in living an absolutely holy and perfect life; he is faithful in making me absolutely holy and perfect to him. That is an awesome thought. As imperfect as I am to me, he sees me as perfect because he sees me through the blood of Christ. I have been washed in the blood, and make white as snow, by God.

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