Sanctification: Is just doing it enough?

Over the last few years I've been traveling a journey in my faith. This journey has modified my views on sanctification from what I had previously thought and what I had previously been taught.

Sanctification is first of all NOT salvation. Salvation is what Christ did for us through his death on the cross, if we accept him as savior. Sanctification is the process that we travel through after salvation, as our lives are transformed to become more and more like Christ. Sanctification can be summed up in two categories: works based sanctification and Holy Spirit Based Sanctification.

Works based sanctification is the idea that the things that we do or the things that we do not do will lead us closer to becoming more like Christ. These things can range from you have to tithe to be close to Christ, or you can't go to movies or you will be farther away Christ.

I was once told by a teacher that even if I didn't like something taught at the school, I should still make it a practice in order to glorify God, and eventually I would come to like it. While I agree with the intent of that statement, I believe that is also what causes so many issues in modern Christianity. In Churches all around our nation we have Christians who are posers. They put on a good act, and we tend to think they are sold out for Christ, but the reality is that they are still acting. We have lost the heart by approaching things from this perspective. People who are taught this perspective often end up thinking all they have are a list of rules and lose respect for the leaders and mentors who give them a list of things they cannot do.

I tend to lean toward the perspective of Holy Spirit based sanctification. Scripture gives us clear principles of how to live and it is up to the Holy Spirit's influence to transform our lives to become more and more like Christ. Before I lose some of you, this is in no way a permission slip to sin. In fact it is quite the contrary. This view is a call for Christians to be more diligent as there is no oversight by another person but rather Christ alone. This principle applies to things like how involved in culture we should be, what music to listen to, how liturgical we should make our services, whether we should raise our hands in worship, and so on.

In Acts we are taught that the only "things" gentile believers are required to do, is to abstain from idolatry and abstain from sexual sins. This is the only list in scripture we are given. Everything else we do must conform to the expectations of an holy God as we see in the lists that Paul specifically addresses to churches who were straying.

As believers attend church and read the Bible they will naturally learn more and more about living the Christian life. This is when the Holy Spirit convicts and leads the believer away from the act that is leading them farther from Christ, and back to Him.

It comes down to a heart attitude. Are you allowing the Spirit to lead you? If you are leading others, are you leading them or allowing the Holy Spirit to transform them. As Mark Hall said, maybe we need to let God change the heart, before changing the shirt.