Sanctification process: how much is our part to do vs. how much Christ does in us?

[HappyGrace]

I think I advised dd12 wrong today-she's been frustrated that she can't change, God doesn't help her, etc. I told her our part is to be in the Word, praying, etc. All of which she does do (not very consistent and not with a heart that truly desires to do it), so she is saying that doesn't help and is ready to give up, down on herself that she can't do it. I suggested being more consistent with the above (praise music, praying, reading Word, etc) to try to help keep the Lord in the forefront of her mind.

 

Then I was reading in a Christian historical fiction book tonight that the Lord does the changing, we can't do it on our own.

 

I'm torn, because I know how dd feels-I am usually frustrated due to lack of progress in my own sanctification process and often wonder if it's because I'm not consistent enough, etc.

 

To make things worse, we're both perfectionists, type A people. I think she is feeling even more frustrated since we talked, like she's not doing enough and it is hopeless. I think I'm passing on my own faulty theology :(

 

I feel like we both are Christians who love God but it's kind of an outer veneer w/out a lot of true heart change. And I don't know why that is because we are in church, read the Word, etc. I realize it's a process, but it seems like it's slow going. Not sure if there is something we're doing wrong, or if it is just a slow process for most people? Or is it that the Holy Spirit does this in His own time?

 

{We are Baptist (and reformed).}

 

Of course she has the hormone stuff going on too...

[Teachin'Mine]

Wow - great question! What I'm thinking right now, which is subject to change, lol is that 100 percent of the sanctifying grace comes from God. Did Saul do anything to bring about his conversion? But once he was converted, through the Grace of God, he then began to live his new life in Christ.

 

This link has some great info about sanctifying grace - it's from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

 

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c3a2.htm

 

We are asked to pray and read the Scriptures, among other things, to open ourselves to God's love. It sounds like your daughter is open to Him and needs to just be patient as God is at work in her. The passage "Be still and know that I am God" comes to mind. :)

[nova147]

We cannot sanctify ourselves . . . it is all from God. But because we have free will, we must choose to participate in our salvation. And sometimes we do so more fully than other times. But it is slow. And uneven. Sometimes I feel very close to God, in line with His desires for me . . . and it is easier to follow His will in those times. And other times, things are much harder. But I don't find that those times coincide with my own actions entirely.

 

I would encourage you to consider the actions of the Devil in the world. I know it's not terribly fashionable to talk about him as a real being, but I believe he exists and has fallen angels under his authority. And they seek to pull souls away from God. Unless this is a topic you've thought about a great deal, I would not suggest discussing it with your 12 year old for a while. It's a difficult thing to grasp in our modern world and unless you are convinced of it's truth, it will likely make things worse, not better.

 

I don't have any parenting advice . . . my oldest is only 7. I look forward to those later years with a mix of excitement and fear. I will pray for both of you!

[Celia]

Participation is key, but frustration over our continual state, well, that's normal. And I daresay that it gets harder as you get older/more spiritually mature as you realize just how difficult is it to go against our own natural desires. I mean, look at Paul's perspective in Romans 7 - "O wretched man that I am!". I would advise your daughter to have a read of that chapter.

 

Christ himself agonized over the temptations he was presented with, and one of our condolances is that we have a high priest who was tempted in like manner as we are - he knows the feelings of our infermety that we bear. And he literally put the flesh to death, denying himself to serve God. We're commanded over and over again to try to be as Christ, putting to death the flesh, putting on the newness of life. This is where participation is so very vital. This is the atonement, as by participating with Christ, putting on Christ's death and resurrection figuratively through attempting to put away our sinful desires, acting in a way that doesn't come naturally to us, we are forgiven for his sake.

 

But, as far as what you read in your book about, with God doing the changing and not us, I think that it's putting too much of our own responsibility aside. Yes, God does do the changing, but it requires our own effort as well. Look again at Christ our example, in Isaiah 50 "Each morning he awakens me eager to learn his teaching he made me willing to listen, and not to rebel, or run away". So that very organ by which faith comes (faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God) was always open to the ear of his Father.

 

It would be really nice to say that it's not our responsibility to take part in changing ourselves, but there are requirements. We can't sit back and be miraculously made Godly, faith takes effort. Good works take effort. Reading the Bible and praying regularly takes effort. We will fail, and we won't overcome our own desires that are contrary to God's until we are no longer in the flesh. The struggle will never go away until we're dead. But God will strengthen us, bless our efforts, and reward us for our faithfulness in due time. And through the trials we face during our time of probation, our characters will grow to be more like His, and we will reflect His glory, as lights shining in a dark place.

[Gailmegan]

You will definitely get different answers based on which theological background the poster is coming from. The Reformed tradition (as I'm sure you're aware) really does focus on the sovereignty of God over the process of sanctification. But that does't mean we sit back passively. It just means that anything we strive to do should be done based solely on the relationship that we have with Jesus and the victory he shares with us. If you read any of Paul's epistles, he doesn't just jump in and tell people to change, he reminds them who they are in Christ and calls on the powers available to us due to our new identity in Christ (Holy Spirit, body of believers, Word) for those changes to take place.

 

It is frustrating as anything to see areas in our lives that we want to change, but feel powerless to do so. And that's what drives us to our knees remembering how much we need Jesus. When we are broken in sin, it should drive us to seek Christ more and more and ourselves less and less. Robert Murray M'Cheyne is famous for saying, "For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ." We should rejoice that his grace is sufficient, regardless of how well we are managing our act. This is something we believers need to preach to ourselves all the time - so I'm talking to myself as much as I am talking to you. I was recently reminded of a wonderful book (and group study if you ever wanted to) put out by World Harvest Mission: From Fear to Freedom by Rose Marie Miller. I read it every few years because it gives me such hope in light of these types of struggles.

[milovany]

I don't think it's either/or, but rather both/and. True Godly faith is full of paradoxes. Para- means more than one, -dox means truth. It's both true that God gives salvation, and true that we work toward it. It's not one or the other. God created for us the opportunity for our salvation by giving us a haven where it's found (the Church), and we pursue our salvation by accepting and living in that which God gave us through the Church (repentance, the sacraments -- in this case, confession plays a big role, as does the Eucharist -- the feasts, the prayers, fasting, giving, etc). It's a beautiful synergy that's best experienced, not just thought about our read about. I have found my greatest victories coming through this relationship with God through our Church.

 

Easy? No. But God did/does His part and we must/ought to do ours as well. (NOTE: In the Eastern church, sanctification and salvation are not separate things, but rather all part of the same thing, so that's why I worded my post the way I did, saying "salvation" instead of just "sanctification".)

Edited April 3, 2012 by milovaný

[sbgrace]

Is your daughter a reader? I have struggled with this myself and I could suggest a few (three) books I found quite helpful. I am not reformed and coming at it from a more Arminian view point so I see it as both her and God working together.

[MomatHWTK]

Paul discusses this issue, or at least that's my take on his writing. He talks about both the thorn that the Lord chose not to remove and also about doing those things that he hates and not understanding why.

[Chris in VA]

I think God works with our unwillingness, too, when we bring it to him. We can be "willing to become willing." Remember the part in scripture where the guy comes to Jesus and says "I believe. Help Thou my unbelief."

 

I also think God has created us so that there are certain natural things available to us to help us change. For example, there are certain rules of habit change, things like, often feelings follow actions, so we can feel reluctant to change a habit, but if we DO the action we know we should (or NOT do it, like, working on not using foul language), the more we do it, the easier it becomes to do it and the more we will want to do it. At least a bit. :001_smile: It's definitely a process, but I believe he will honor our attempts and help us.

 

Personally, I sometimes need to really understand my motivation for continuing along the same path, the path I know is not what God wants. A lot of it is rebellion, and there's tons in scripture about that, in all its ugly forms. But the more I learn to cherish God, the more I don't want to rebel. That's because he becomes more dear to me, and I don't want to hurt him or disappoint him, or whatever.

 

In order to "fall more in love with God," for him to become more important to me, and for me to desire to please him more, he had to become more real to me. I had to seek out those resources that showed me what my sin does to God's heart. Those resources were people around me and their stories, the scriptures, great teachers, etc. The more I learned about his character and what the cross meant, the more I wanted to know him, so the more time I spent with him in prayer and worship and scripture reading. And the more I did that (the Be Still aspect and the relationship aspect), the less I wanted to screw around with sin.

 

It's like, it's easier for me to say something nasty about someone with whom I have no relationship than it is to do that to my dearest friends. I don't want to hurt them. When I realized my sins were taken by Jesus to that cross, and that he suffered the separation from God on the cross that caused him to cry out Eloi, Eloi,...Well, I just wanted to maybe not do them so much.

 

But, still human here. Still rebellious, still don't care that I hurt God sometimes, still a hard heart and a wayward woman. But God's still working, too!

 

All that to say, it's teamwork. He knows my frame, he knows what I can stand, he hears my pleas both for mercy and for help (which may include discipline). And he loves me! Thank God I've got a God big enough to both understand my struggles with true empathy, and to provide a way out of temptation, every time, and also big enough to forgive me.

 

Sorry so long.

[Kathleen in VA]

I'm coming from a reformed pov. God is sovereign over our sanctification but we have personal responsibility to avail ourselves to His means of grace - which appears to be what you are doing and telling your daughter to do. The means of grace are reading the Bible, praying, and fellowshipping with other believers. We are commanded to be baptized and to participate in the Lord's Supper as well. There is a mystery in this - that God is sovereign, which He most definitely is, but that He requires our obedience. We won't really understand this seeming paradox until we meet Him face to face - until then we must simply accept that God's sovereign will is worked through His means. Kind of like, why pray when God already knows my needs? We pray because He commands us to and He uses our prayers as His means to accomplish His will. Does He need us in order to do His will? Absolutely not! He is omnipotent and is not sitting on His hands waiting for us to do our part. Nevertheless, we do have a a part and we must be obedient to His word.

 

Like others have said - it is a lifelong process. It is a good thing your daughter does not feel like she has "arrived." That's a dangerous place to be. But, otoh, she should not be discouraged by her failings. That sense of failing, of falling short, is the very thing that reminds us how much we need a Savior. This is when she needs to preach the Gospel to herself - something every Christian should do on a daily basis. Remembering how sinful we are, how hopeless we are if left to our devices, and how God provided a means of salvation through the merits of His Son (and not our own merits) reestablishes that we are saved and kept by God - it is His doing and not our own. We need to pray daily, "Lord, have mercy on me, for I am a sinner." Then we need to rest in Christ's righteousness and not our own, leaning on Him hourly, even moment by moment to do His will. We will fail, but we must get up, brush ourselves off, and begin again, our eyes on Christ and His finished work on our behalf. We do this whenever it is necessary - sometimes daily, and more often, many times a day. Keep pointing her to Christ and His great salvation.

 

I agree with Wendy, too, that she must really be saved for God to be able to work His grace in her life and she must be willing to submit to the Holy Spirit. I am also wondering how she/you are measuring growth in the Lord.

[HappyGrace]

So many good things to think about-thank you!

 

I do believe we are both saved. But I don't see in her the willingness to submit her will to Christ's. I had that for a LONG time as a Christian-wanted to be saved but not truly do things His way. (I said the "I believe-help my unbelief" over and over for years!) It is like being saved in as head knowledge rather than truly in the heart.

 

So she is not seeing fruit as a result of that (as I didn't, for years). That is not something I can do anything about-it has to come from the Holy Spirit.

 

I guess I was on the right track-all I can do is encourage her to stay close to the Lord through the Word, prayer, etc. I was actually really encouraged because quite a few things that I read here were things that I have been saying to her-so the Lord encouraged me through your responses that I am on the right track with what I've been saying to her!

 

There is definitely a ton of spiritual warfare going on with her regarding this but also other issues (anxiety, etc) so I would love if you would say a prayer for her!

[ma23peas]

Sometimes there is a disconnect on HOW God works!! It has helped my children immensely (especially in ages 8-14) to read books about His Hand at work and even see how when we think He's NOT working, He really is!!

 

Books that have really inspire my children's walk

 

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

The End of the Spear (movie as well!)

 

And believe it or not, we ADORE all the Adventures in Odyssey on discs...phenomenal lessons of how God works in us and those who struggle!!