Do what is right; master sin

As a follow-up to a previous post on sanctification (the continuous infilling and inward spiritual growth from the Holy Spirit; post-salvation), I wanted to expand a little on the role God can play in our lives when we continue to earnestly seek Him and by faith, live for His will in our lives.

The Lord came into my life in a very profound manner. It happened on a Friday evening; Friday September 5, 2008 at 4:40 P.M. to be exact; maybe 4:45. There was a feeling of warmth; new breath; a new beating in my heart; a newly revived purpose in life that can only be somewhat explained via the limited vocabulary of this sixth-grade spelling bee runner-up.

Once this sinner was cleansed (saved) and thus forgiven for the things of old, I began questioning seriously whether the temptation(s) of this world was going to be the new status quo, or whether I could “master” sin in my life? Even deeper: were the buzz words and phrases I heard from those, in church, claiming to live a holy life – that is to say, set apart by the Holy Spirit from  sin or further yet, the mere tempation of sin, in this world – really possible? Or was that just lip service? Were they just wanting to stand out from everybody else, and not really wanting to do the dirty laundry they had been ignoring?

A new prescription

“We live in a fallen world and we’re all sinners; we just need to keep remembering that,” said the host of the morning Christian radio broadcast I recently heard. While the belief is that the world is fallen and we are all born into sin, the tone and manner with which we approach and discuss this topic is what is concerning to me. The tone that was in this broadcaster’s voice was a tone of defeat. And quite frankly brothers and sisters – I don’t want to subscribe to it any longer.

John Wesley spoke of Christian Perfection. In his book A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, right from the beginning he says:

“Let us strongly and explicitly exhort all believers to go on to perfection. That we may all speak the same thing, we ask once for all, shall we defend this perfection, or give it up? We all agree to defend it, meaning thereby (as we did from the beginning) salvation from all sin, properly so called, by the love of God and man filling our heart."