Renewing Your Mind Day 3 - Changing My Mind About Holiness

(1 Corinthians 6:11) And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
A renewed mind means my thought patterns about my identity changes. I am no longer a sinner. Now I am a saint of the Most High God. I am no longer living on my own terms. The direction and purpose of my life has been aligned with the direction and purpose of Christ in me. I am no longer living according to my own standard of morality and behavior. Now, as someone who is sanctified, I live a life that has been set apart for a holy purpose.

To sanctify means to "make holy, purify or consecrate." This is not a description of my behavior. This is a description of my position in Christ. Just as I stand before Him justified, I also stand before Him sanctified. Because I've been declared righteous, I am now qualified to be set apart to a life of holy purpose.
The difficulty comes in when I fail to live according to this purpose. When I try to live a life of holiness according to a set of rules or standards, I put myself under the Law. This only leads to failure after failure. I reason with myself and justify sin because I start to believe that is my identity. Instead of a renewed mind, my thinking reverts back to my previous thinking before Christ. I see myself as a sinner and unworthy of living for God.
But then grace floods my thought-life and everything changes. I realize that I could never live a life pleasing to God according to a set of rules - both before I came to Christ and even after I became a Christian. Grace always brings clarity and truth to a situation. Even when I fail I must come back again and again to grace for the power to repent. It leads me to rejoice once again in my true identity - I am washed! I am sanctified! I am justified! This is what gives courage and encouragement to continue in the Word of God and in dependency on the Spirit of God to walk in a new and holy way..

Renewed Thought - I am set apart by God for a holy and righteous purpose. When I walk by faith in this, I will begin to live out my true purpose for Him and I will begin to be holy in my daily life.

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