Devotional: Chosen to Be Sanctified

"But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth."

‭‭2 Thessalonians‬ ‭2:13‬ ‭NASB‬‬

Chosen from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.  That is a mouth full! I did not choose God, but He chose me from the beginning.  A lot of people like to leave it right there.  Isn't that nice that He chose me.  How special!  

They forget about the rest of the sentence.  What was that again?  "...through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth".  Oh, now that changes the tune a bit.  What does it mean to be sanctified?  Sanctification is the process of being made holy, set apart by God for holy use.  How does one become sanctified?  It usually means some sort of difficulty whereby one learns to respond in a godly way.  

As an example, when I was flying home from North Carolina last week, my plane to Lewiston got canceled and I ended up spending the night in the airport. This was a good time for me to exercise a godly response and be sanctified in this difficulty.  Unfortunately, my initial response was to irritation, my next response was to reward myself with the biggest Jamba Juice they had to offer "because I was having a bad day" and my third response was to fall apart and cry my eyes out.  Less than a sanctified response.  When we fail, it gives us an opportunity to repent and think about how we should have responded so next time we can do better.

Yes, He chose me, but now my job is to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in sanctification so that I might be more Christlike in my responses to the trials of life.  It's not easy.  God never promised the Christian life would be a cake walk, but He did promise He would be with us and never leave us. This is the truth and we are to have faith in God's truth. 

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