Sanctification

“Making holy” or “consecrating” a place, thing, or person to God. Since holiness is primarily the attribute of God, what is “sanctified” is removed from “profane” or “secular” use and reserved to the Lord. In the OT, rites such as sprinkling with blood sanctify places, objects, and persons. The people must consecrate themselves before they can approach the Lord. NT writers can speak of sanctification as something that is accomplished by Christ. Jesus’s sacrifice is said to “sanctify” Christians. Sanctification, however, is not a passive gift. Christians live out their lives in a holiness that reflects what they have received.
(via Harper-Collins Bible Dictionary)

Hebrews 12:14

Pursue peace with everyone and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

The Gift of Sanctification

Sanctification and the church are inseparably tied together since the church is the community of saints, the gathering of the sanctified brought together for the sake of proclaiming and receiving Christ. When the Holy Spirit sanctifies us, the Holy Spirit changes our relationship to one another by gathering, “a unique community in the world, which is the mother that begets and bears every Christian through the Word of God, which the Holy Spirit reveals and proclaims, through which he illuminates and inflames hearts so that they grasp and accept it, cling to it, and persevere in it.” The greatest work of the sanctified is the proclamation of God’s Word, where we are made vessels of forgiveness, delivering not our own works but the work of Jesus Christ to another. Sanctification is not an external measure of holiness that demonstrates your growth as a Christian to the world. Instead, Sanctification is a great gift of the Holy Maker, the Spirit of God. Having been justified by faith in Christ, you are renewed and sanctified, placed into work within God’s kingdom of this world for the sake of the life and world to come. The Holy Spirit has made you to receive and deliver the works of God, and he gathers the sanctified together to proclaim Christ and his gospel until our Savior comes again to raise us from the dead.
– Caleb Keith “On Being Made Holy” 1517.org        

Prayer & Reflection

How does this understanding of sanctification as a gift challenge the way you think about the role of good works?