Present Day Sanctification

For this is the will of God your sanctification.... I Thess. 4. 3a. Selfishly when I interpret this verse I have a tendency to think, for this is the will of God that I am sanctified. I have been reminded once again that I am not sanctified but rather am in the process. Paul is adamant in regards to the terminology that he is using here. God is adamant about the terminology that he revealed to Paul. For this is God's will, His general will, here it is are you ready... "that we recognize that we are in a process. I think we forget this, I don't know about you, but I am not crazy about processes. Rightly so when I hear teaching on sanctification it is most often discussed in the terms of a process rather then lets say a system. Now a system, that is something I can handle. You know I do a then b then c then d, and the system flows nicely, in theory that is. In a system you would never want to go from f to b or from c back down to a. That type of thinking fits better with a process, a process allows some learning, it is like we are not done yet, we have not arrived. For this is God's will that we are sanctified? Yes but are we there yet, no, so maybe if I focused more on the process and the present rather then envisioning the finished product, (super me), I would be able to fair better in this process, See our terminology plays a big role in how we think and feel in regards to how we are doing in our sanctification and theology in general. If I believe that I am sanctified then I maybe might spend too much time living in the future or maybe the past. That is where we spend most of our time. We live in the past and the future. What if it was God's will for us, after justification, after the recognizing the work of Christ, after being set free, what if it is God's will for us to now realize what we may have gotten ourselves into by following Christ. For this is God's will, your sanctification, almost as if it is God's will for us to recognize that we are in a process now, and it is not tme to take the armor off, it is time to put it on and leave it on. And sometimes it is not pretty, victories are few, failures are many, (thank goodness my justification is not based on my victories and failures) maybe God wants us to try, if we can, to think outside the box, recognize some things outside of time, you know where He is. What if God wants us to remember that the process we are in right now is past present and future and he sees it all at once. For this is God's will, our process, our journey with him, not earning, but giving effort, like any good relationship should.

This thinking whether you buy this mumbo jumbo or not helps me to live in the present, today now. The past is only good for reflection, regret, pride, lust; the future only good for selfishness, pride and mostly worry. If we spend all our time living in those two: past and future, we are useless for the present( by the way the devil knows this too, helping to convince us to render ourselves useless today), and do you know what takes place in the present? Everything..... Relationships, smiles, love, acts of kindness, sin, lust, touch, sex, honesty, manipulation, hot, cold, my wife, my daughter's kiss that I covet like nothing else, my sons cry, as it seems to change daily, my forgiveness, my temper, my hate, my insecurities, my addictions, my turmoil, His grace, His name, my identity, my interations, my reality, my life. For this is the will of God that you recognize that you are in this process of sanctification, right now this moment till we are all one day perfect and mature lacking nothing..... then we can take the armor off, then we can think about the past and future, but by then we will not want to, for we will know better...............