Sanctification Quotes

For neo-conservatism is a quintessentially Jewish project: a re-sanctification in everyday life of the core values of western civilisation, and the achievement of human potential through virtuous practice. The neo-cons' crucial insight is that public signals through law, custom and tradition are the key to getting people to behave well. And that is a Jewish insight. ~ Melanie Phillips

American Christianity is a story of perpetual upheavals in churches and individual lives. Starting with the extraordinary conversion experience, our lives are motivated by a constant expectation for the Next Big Thing. We're growing bored with the ordinary means of God's grace, attending church week in and week out. Doctrines and disciplines that have shaped faithful Christian witness in the past are often marginalized or substituted with newer fashions or methods. The new and improved may dazzle us for a moment, but soon they have become "so last year". Michael Horton, Ordinary, 16 ~ Michael S. Horton

Progressive sanctification is not a partnership with the Spirit in the sense that we each - the believer and the Holy Spirit - do our respective tasks. Rather, we work as He enables us to work. His work lies behind all our work and makes our work possible. ~ Jerry Bridges

Sanctification means that the Christians have been judged already, and that they are being preserved until the coming of Christ and are ever advancing towards it. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you. ~ John Owen

Faith consists not in ignorance, but in knowledge - knowledge not of God merely ... but when we recognize God as a propitious Father through the reconciliation made by Christ, and Christ as given to us for righteousness, sanctification, and life. ~ John Calvin

If you're serious about sanctification, you can expect to experience heart-wrenching moments that try your faith, your endurance, and your patience. ~ Sheri Dew

If you wait until all of your own issues are gone before helping others, it will never happen. This is a trap that millions have fallen into, not realizing that our own sanctification happens as we minister to others. ~ Francis Chan

Progressive Dispensationalism advocates a holistic and unified view of eternal salvation."[120] This means that all the redeemed will be blessed with the same salvation with respect to justification and sanctification. One wonders if this is not similar to the concept and purpose of the Covenant of Grace in Covenant Theology.[121] While ~ Matthew Stamper

Everything we encounter today is used by God to prepare us for tomorrow. he wastes no trials, withholds no blessings, nor does he hold back on the discipline of his soldiers. All He does prepares us for future usefulness as vessels of honor. ~ Rick Lambert

Let us awake to a sense of the perilous state of many professing Christians. 'Without holiness no man shall see the Lord'; without sanctification there is no salvation (Hebrews 12:14). Then what an enormous amount of so-called religion there is which is perfectly useless! ~ J.C. Ryle

I fear it is sometimes forgotten that God has married together justification and sanctification. They are distinct and different things, beyond question, but one is never found without the other. All justified people are sanctified, and all sanctified people are justified ... Tell me not of your justification, unless you have also some marks of sanctification. Boast not of Christ's work for you, unless you can show us the Spirit's work in you. ~ J.C. Ryle

God works this unspeakable mystery of entire sanctification in your life and mine. People try to seek the experience of entire sanctification in ways other than God's way; but the wonderful Spirit of God will remove confusion and enable us to see that the only means to obtain the experience of entire sanctification by faith is the grace of God. ~ Oswald Chambers

For true conversion doth not consist in putting away great and outward sins only, but in descending deeply into your own self, searching into the inmost recesses of the heart, the secrets and closets, all the windings and turnings thereof; changing and renewing them throughout, with the grace that is given you: and so, by faith, you are converted from self-love to Divine love; from the world and all worldly concupiscences, to a spiritual and heavenly life; and from a participation of the pomps and pleasures thereof, to participating the merits and virtues of Christ, by believing his word, and walking in his steps. ~ Johann Arndt

Oh, the closest walk with God is the sweetest heaven that can be enjoyed on earth! ~ Jonathan Edwards

The Church, like her head, has a glory, but it is concealed from carnal eyes, for the time of her breaking forth in all her splendour is not yet come. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Sanctification in any area of our lives always expresses this double dimension - a putting off and a putting on, as it were. Speech and silence, appropriately expressed, are together the mark of the mature.3 ~ John Piper

When it comes to sanctification, it's more important where you're going than where you are. ~ Kevin DeYoung

If God opens the door for you to do something you know is good or necessary, be thankful for the opportunity. But other than that, don't assume that the relative ease or difficulty of a new situation is God's way of telling you to do one thing or the other. Remember, God's will for your life is sanctification, and God tends to use discomfort and trials more than comfort and ease to make us holy. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Start with Christ (that is, the gospel) and you get sanctification in the bargain; begin with Christ and move on to something else, and you lose both. ~ Michael S. Horton

Men, your primary responsibility in your home, after your wife, is you to disciple your own children. And if you don't do it, you're in sin; you are in sin. And if you turn it over to a Sunday school teacher, you are in sin. And you are to be teaching these children more than just stories about animals that went into Noah's ark. You're to be teaching them about God, about radical depravity, about blood atonement, about propitiation, expiation, justification, sanctification; you are to teach your children! ~ Paul Washer

The heart of sanctification is the life which feeds on justification. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

Curiously enough, it is a fear of how grace will change and improve them that keeps many souls away from God. They want God to take them as they are and let them stay that way. They want Him to take away their love of riches, but not their riches - to purge them of the disgust of sin, but not of the pleasure of sin. Some of them equate goodness with indifference to evil and think that God is good if He is broad-minded or tolerant about evil. Like the onlookers at the Cross, they want God on their terms, not His, and they shout, "Come down, and we will believe." But the things they ask are the marks of a false religion: it promises salvation without a cross, abandonment without sacrifice, Christ without his nails. God is a consuming fire; our desire for God must include a willingness to have the chaff burned from our intellect and the weeds of our sinful will purged. The very fear souls have of surrendering themselves to the Lord with a cross is an evidence of their instinctive belief in His Holiness. Because God is fire, we cannot escape Him, whether we draw near for conversion or flee from aversion: in either case, He affects us. If we accept His love, its fires will illumine and warm us; if we reject Him, they will still burn on in us in frustration and remorse. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

The New Testament calls upon us to take action; it does not tell us that the work of sanctification is going to be done for us. . . . We are in the 'good fight of faith', and we have to do the fighting. But, thank God, we are enabled to do it; for the moment we believe, and are justified by faith, and are born again of the Spirit of God, we have the ability. So the New Testament method of sanctification is to remind us of that; and having reminded us of it, it says, 'Now then, go and do it'. ~ Kevin DeYoung

25For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26For consider your calling, brothers: m not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, [3] not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27But n God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; o God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28God chose what is low and despised in the world, even p things that are not, to q bring to nothing things that are, 29so r that no human being [4] might boast in the presence of God. 30And because of him [5] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us s wisdom from God, t righteousness and u sanctification and v redemption, 31so that, as it is written, w Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. ~ Anonymous

One of the great virtues of Christianity, according to (John)Wesley, is the way it fills up our every waking hour. Both (N.T.) Wright and Wesley write that Christianity is not just about what God does for us but what God does in us. ~ John Meunier

I believe real faith grows from the sanctification of the ordinary. When as a couple you commit on a regular basis to going to bed early to talk, and perhaps to making love afterward, that's a sanctification of the ordinary. ~ Stephen Snyder, M.D.

The 'means of grace' are such as Bible reading, private prayer, and regularly worshiping God in Church, wherein one hears the Word taught and participates in the Lord's Supper. I lay it down as a simple matter of fact that no one who is careless about such things must ever expect to make much progress in sanctification. ~ J.C. Ryle

So in the midst of our struggle with indwelling sin, we must continually keep our focus on the gospel. We must always go back to the truth that even in the face of the fact that so often "I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing" (Rom 7:19), there is no condemnation. God no longer counts our sins against us (Rom 4:8). Or, to say it another way, God wants us to find our primary joy in our objectively declared justification, not in our subjectively perceived sanctification. Regardless of how much progress we make in our pursuit of holiness, it will never come close to the absolute perfect righteousness of Christ that is ours through our union with him in his life and death. So we should learn to live with the discomfort of the justified life. We should accept the fact that as still-growing Christians we will always be dissatisfied with our sanctification. But at the same time, we should remember that in Christ we are justified. ~ Jerry Bridges

[Salvation] is a life-changing experience when it happens, and if our life isn't changed by it, then it either didn't happen at all or we are so caught up in this world, spending so much time, effort, and emotion on the red circle, that we are ignoring the permanent, eternal, gigantic, blue part of the map in which we will forever be. ~ Van Harden

But do you give it to Him daily, Rachel? Do you make the choice every day to live for Him? Because justification for all of your sins was a one-time deal, done on the cross, but the sanctification He's working out in your life? A daily thing. A dying to self thing. A choice to live for Him and for what He wants to do in you rather than waiting for some man to come along, love you, and fill a need that Christ alone can fill. ~ Jenn Faulk

What Paul understands by holiness or sanctification (is) the learning in the present of the habits which anticipate the ultimate future. ~ N. T. Wright

Sanctification is not to be understood here as a separation from ordinary use or consecration to some special use, although this meaning is often present in Scripture, sometimes referring to outward and sometimes to inward or effectual separation. ~ William Ames

But isn't the whole idea of sanctification the fact that we're not really there yet? That we're still growing and becoming? Still learning how to live the gospel out? Then why this obsession with pretending to be something for other people, who are pretending to be something for us? It's madness. You see that, don't you? The cross of Jesus, while definitely meant to include us in the family of God, is also designed to out us as people who desperately need what its forgiveness and power provide. The ~ Matt Chandler

The proof or validation of genuine conversion is that the one who professes faith in Christ perseveres in that faith and grows in sanctification throughout the full course of his life. If a person professes faith in Christ and yet falls away or makes no progress in godliness, it does not mean that he has lost his salvation. It reveals that he was never truly converted. ~ Paul David Washer

There is only one classroom in which to learn: 1. The work of God. 2. The will of God. 3. The trustworthiness of God. 4. The presence of God. The classroom is where I am now. This is the place appointed by God for my instruction and sanctification - even here: 1. where it seems God is doing nothing (He is, in fact, at work in unseen ways); 2. where His will seems obscure or frightening (He will surely give me peace at last); 3. where He isn't doing what I want Him to (He is doing something better - preparing bread for me when what I asked was in actual fact a stone; or perhaps, He is doing the very thing I prayed for, but in a way incomprehensible to me); 4. where He is most absent (yes, even there His promise holds: I will never leave you or forsake you. My faith must size that written word regardless of the enemy's taunt, "You've been abandoned."). ~ Elisabeth Elliot

Keep yourselves from idols." The warning isn't given to them because it wasn't a real danger or because there was an off chance someone might fall into idolatry. It was given because this is our root problem on any given day. It is what we, especially as followers of Jesus, must fight against. ~ Joe Thorn

Union with Christ is the distinctive blessing of the gospel dispensation in which every other is comprised -- justification, sanctification, adoption, and the future glorifying of our bodies; all these are but different aspects of the one great truth, that the Christian is one with Christ." -- Edward Arthur Litton ~ A.J. Gordon

There are times when you cannot understand why you cannot do what you want to do. When God brings the blank space, see that you do not fill it in, but wait. The blank space may come in order to teach you what sanctification means; or it may come after sanctification to teach you what service means. Never run before God's guidance. If there is the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt - don't. ~ Oswald Chambers

Once you have the right relationship with God through salvation and sanctification, remember that whatever your circumstances may be, you have been placed in them by God. And God uses the reaction of your life to your circumstances to fulfill His purpose, as long as you continue to "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7). ~ Oswald Chambers

True worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in thrush are the bone and marrow of biblical worship. (Desiring God, 81-82) ~ John Piper

When I am tempted and feel the power of sin and its tug on my affections, the gospel gives me something to say: 'Christ bled and died for this sin - I will therefore have nothing to do with it. I am now united to Christ by the indwelling of the Spirit - how can I drag him into my sin? ~ Sinclair B. Ferguson

God's will is always your sanctification. ~ Kevin DeYoung

Regeneration is the fountain; sanctification is the river. ~ J. Sidlow Baxter

Romance, sex, laughter, and plain fun are the by-products of this process of sanctification, refinement, glorification. Those things are important, but they can't keep the marriage going through years and years of ordinary life. What keeps the marriage going is your commitment to your spouse's holiness. You're committed to his or her beauty. You're committed to his greatness and perfection. You're committed to her honesty and passion for the things of God. That's your job as a spouse. Any lesser goal than that, any smaller purpose, and you're just playing at being married. ~ Timothy Keller

That our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for GOD's sake, which we commonly do for our own. That it was lamentable to see how many people mistook the means for the end, addicting themselves to certain works, which they performed very imperfectly, by reason of their human or selfish regards. ~ Brother Lawrence

This is how faith changes us. It is not simply that we are trusting Jesus to help us become more holy. No. It is that we are more and more allowing the holiness of Christ to be freely expressed in us. Rather than trying to be more righteous, we actually experience His righteousness flowing through us. Rather than us trying to be more loving, we experience His love flowing through us into the people around us. Rather than us trying to have more holy desires, we experience the holy desires of Jesus. This is what sanctification looks like. This is what it means to drink deeply of Jesus. The more deeply and frequently we drink, the more fully His life is expressed through us. ~ Alan Kraft

But let it suffice us to know that it became God, who is the supreme Ruler, Governor and Judge of all that sin should be punished with death in the sinner or his surety; and therefore if God would bring many sons to glory, the Captain of their salvation must undergo sufferings and death, to make satisfaction for them. ~ John Owen

So close to the powers of evil she must have lived that she still breathed more freely in their air. ~ Edith Wharton

Loving a holy God is beyond our moral power. The only kind of God we can love by our sinful nature is an unholy god, an idol made by our own hands. Unless we are born of the Spirit of God, unless God sheds His holy love in our hearts, unless He stoops in His grace to change our hearts, we will not love Him ... To love a holy God requires grace, grace strong enough to pierce our hardened hearts and awaken our moribund souls. ~ R.C. Sproul

I think it's for me with regards to this issue I believe in justification at the point of salvation; I believe in sanctification at the point of salvation. That doesn't mean that we don't continue to mature as believers in Christ. But I believe that we are justified and we are sanctified. But sin resides, the power of sin resides in our flesh. It will always try us and it was always tempt us and therefore we always need to be submitting our mind, will and emotions to the lordship of Jesus Christ. ~ Alan Chambers

All fancied sanctification which does not arise wholly from the blood of the cross is nothing better than Pharisaism. If we would be holy, we must get to the cross, and dwell there; else, notwithstanding all our labour, diligence, fasting, praying and good works, we shall be yet void of real sanctification, destitute of those humble, gracious tempers which accompany a clear view of the cross. ~ Jerry Bridges

Lighten up" (don't) turn prayer into a work but listen for God and let oneself be surprised. Overly rigid adherence to a spiritual direction built around formal liturgical adherence and highly structured prayer time can work against the sanctification of the ordinary. Christ is effectively imprisoned, to be visited at stated times and otherwise ignored". ~ Margaret Guenther

We honestly think that we ourselves and those around us should be proficient with spiritual power, moving and acting with agility and endurance, wisdom and purity, able to conquer long-established habits of sloth and rebelliousness, simply on the basis of our desire and effort and sincerity ... We have to train for the spiritual life. ~ Mark Buchanan

Sanctification is like a clumsy, slow walk rather than a light switch that we turn from off to on. ~ Edward T. Welch

Sanctification is not regeneration. ~ Matthew Simpson

The man who sanctifies his wife understands that this is his divinely ordained responsibility ... Is my wife more like Christ because she is married to me? Or is she like Christ in spite of me? Has she shrunk from His likeness because of me? Do I sanctify her or hold her back? Is she a better woman because she is married to me? ~ R. Kent Hughes

St. John says: "This is the victory which overcometh the world, our faith." (1 John 5:4). God has created us simply to labor at our souls' salvation and to become holy. "This is the will of God, your sanctification," says the Apostle. (1 Thess. 4:3). To this end all our efforts must be directed, and faith puts us in a position to overcome all the obstacles which the world opposes to the realization of our object, obstacles such as human respect, the inordinate desires of the flesh, in a word, all the temptations of Hell. ~ Alfonso Maria De Liguori

Rather than trusting God, many will doggedly hold onto the belief that there is a divinely-designed formula or biblical methodology that can ensure their child's salvation, and then guarantee the child's sanctification. That debatable belief often leads to finding special methods in Scripture that come with a promise of success. Soon, though, the parents are no longer trusting God, because they no longer need to - they are trusting the methods instead. Those methods, then, can too easily become rules, and then legalism, and then a reliance on works that replaces a life of faith. ~ Clay Clarkson

In justification the word to be addressed to man is believe - only believe; in sanctification the word must be 'watch, pray, and fight.' ~ J.C. Ryle

God's hearing of our prayers doth not depend upon sanctification, but upon Christ's intercession; not upon what we are in ourselves, but what' we are in the Lord Jesus; both our persons and our prayers are acceptable in the beloved [Eph 1.6]. ~ Thomas Brooks

Whether this was explicitly taught or implicitly caught, I grew up with the impression that when it comes to the Christian life, justification was step one and sanctification was step two and that once we get to step two there's no reason to revisit step one. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

The deepest word that can be spoken about sanctification is that it is a progress towards true humanity. ~ J.I. Packer

If you do not put a difference between justification wrought by the Man Christ without, and sanctification wrought by the Spirit of Christ within, you are not able to divide the word aright; but contrariwise, you corrupt the word of God. ~ John Bunyan

Union with Christ is the foundational basis for sanctification and the dynamic force that empowers it. ~ Robert Letham

If you dwell often on the truth that God is Lord and orders everything, even the frustrations, for our sanctification (Hebrews 12:511; cf. Romans 8:28ff.), you will find yourself able increasingly, even in the most maddening moments, to "keep your cool" - and that is best of all. ~ J.I. Packer

It is possible to feel angered by the compromises all around us, while remaining apathetic to the compromises inside us. ~ Stephen Davey

Wherever there is true grace, there is a desire for more grace. ~ Matthew Henry

If you yield yourself up to His divine working, the Lord will alter your nature; He will subdue the old nature, and breathe new life into you. Put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and He will give you a heart of flesh. Where everything was hard, everything shall be tender; where everything was vicious, everything shall be virtuous: where everything tended downward, everything shall rise upward with impetuous force. The lion of anger shall give place to the lamb of meekness; the raven of uncleanness shall fly before the dove of purity; the vile serpent of deceit shall be trodden under the heel of truth. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The axle of the wheels of the chariot of Providence is Infinite Love, and Gracious Wisdom is the perpetual charioteer. ~ Charles Spurgeon

Indeed is it not the case that in this matter of sanctification our tendency is always to start with ourselves, instead of starting with God? I have got this sin that is worrying me and always getting me down, this sin that defeats me, and my tendency is to say, 'What can be done about this sin, this problem of mine. How can I get rid of this thing? How can I get peace?' I start with myself and my problem, and as certainly as I do that when I am considering this doctrine of sanctification, I am sure, in some shape or form, to end by regarding God as merely an agency who is there to help me solve my problems. And this is a totally unscriptural approach to the almighty ever blessed God. ~ D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Sanctification costs to the extent of an intense narrowing of all our interests on earth and an immense broadening of all our interests in God. ~ Oswald Chambers

Life and death! They seem like complete opposites-at great enmity with each other. But for Paul-and for all who share his faith-there is a unity, because the same great passion is fulfilled in both-namely, that Christ be magnified in this body-our bodies-whether by life or by death. ~ John Piper

I am convinced that we Christ-followers need an understanding of playfulness if we are going to take sanctification by the Holy Spirit seriously. ~ Calvin Seerveld

Ah! sinner, remember this, there is no way on earth effectually to be rid of the guilt, filth, and power of sin, but by believing in a Saviour. It is not resolving, it is not complaining, it is not mourning, but believing, that will make thee divinely victorious over that body of sin that to this day is too strong for thee, and that will certainly be thy ruin, if it be not ruined by a hand of faith. (Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 220) ~ Thomas Brooks

Holiness isn't a list of things to do or not do, though - it's a state of being. Holiness is what happens when the broken pieces of our hearts, the brokenness of our lives and the things we do to try to salve that brokenness, are continually turned over to God and left on the altar. The big Christianese word is sanctification. Sanctification is the hope of humanity. It's the golden ice-cream for the meal of grace. ~ Aaron Mark Reimer

It's through the cross that we reach the resurrection. We should be absolutely sure of this truth, and we should keep this cross hidden and not place it on the shoulders of others. It is our cross we have to carry. It is the one God has given us to go through into His resurrection. This is the one we should keep hidden.

But there are crosses and crosses, some of our own making. These we should immediately discard. Some permitted by God for our sanctification. These we can share for they are also for the sanctification of others. True, we can help to carry other people's crosses and they can help to carry our crosses, but the operative word is "hidden."

The Lord said, "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by men," and "When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Mt 6:16-18)

Our very hiddenness becomes a light if we do not complain, if we carry our cross manfully, ready to help in the carrying of other people's crosses. Then we become a light to our neighbour's feet because we become an icon of Christ - shining! ~ Catherine De Hueck Doherty

Consider these differences: Self help depends on my efforts to get where I need to go, sanctification asks God to do what only He can, and then equips me to do what I can in response. Self help focuses on my definition on healthy, helpful, good and wise. Sanctification allows scripture to define the virtues I ought to pursue and display. Self help believes my life is my own, sanctification says that my life is God's and He determines my purpose and path. Self help asserts that knowing my worth and value gives my life meaning, but sanctification moves me to find my worth in what Jesus paid for me. Self help pursues good things, sanctification chases God things. Self help strives to make my life easier, sanctification is submitting to a life that may be harder, but better. Self help has me at the center, sanctification has God at the center. Self help's end game is my happiness, sanctification's goal is my holiness. ~ Whitney Capps

Normal Christian life is a process of restoration and renewal. Our joy is not static. It fluctuates with real life. It is vulnerable to satan's attacks. ~ John Piper

There should be as much difference between the worldling and the Christian, as between hell and heaven, between destruction and eternal life. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Sanctification is the outcome and inseparable consequence of regeneration. He who is born again and made a new creature receives a new nature and a new principle and always lives a new life. ~ J.C. Ryle

I have often thought, during these conferences, about the comment that Maurice Maignan, one of the first companions of Ozanam, made after a retreat: "One thought strikes me. All the means of sanctification which the preacher proposes and develops require a strong soul...I will not profit from exercises designed for strong souls. O my God, show me the exercises designed for feeble souls. Would the saints have forgotten or disdained them? Yet even if the saints did not think of these poor souls, who are nevertheless most numerous, You, Lord, my mercy, have not abandoned them. You Yourself, Good Master, have burdened Yourself with them. I know that better than anyone. I am one of those souls, and I bless You for having revealed to the weak and the little ones what You do not always accord to the valiant and the strong. ~ Jean C.J. D'Elbee

Only one in a thousand sits down in the midst of it all and says - I will watch my Father mend this. God must not be treated as a hospital for our broken "toys," but as our Father. ~ Oswald Chambers

Our work is not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God's sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others' lives until they are totally yielded to God. One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God, we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and those lives will be God's testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a standard of life through His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that same standard in others. ~ Oswald Chambers

Paul states here that the call of God is to preach the gospel. But remember what Paul means by "the gospel," namely, the reality of redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are inclined to make sanctification the goal of our preaching. Paul refers to personal experiences only by way of illustration, never as the end of the matter. We are not commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification - we are commissioned to lift up Jesus Christ (see John 12:32). ~ Oswald Chambers

In many churches, the message of justification- how to get right with God- is preached over and over again. But much less is said about sanctification- how to live after you're converted. ~ Nancy Pearcey

You cannot contain evil by shaming it, or making people feel guilty, but only by revealing it toward it is, and then seeing the good as better. ~ Richard Rohr

Everything we say or do will either illuminate or obscure the character of God. Sanctification is the process of joyfully growing luminous. ~ Jen Wilkin

This is why Peter explained that the purpose of sanctification is so that a believer is ready to evangelize at a moment's notice. He writes, "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear" (1 Pet. 3:15). ~ John F. MacArthur Jr.

Experiential sanctification is an ongoing process of daily rededication, reconsecration, mortification, and vivification of the whole person to God. It calls for believers to live out their baptism in time so as to allow new challenges and circumstances to draw them further on toward the fuller reception of grace and the deepening of purity of heart ~ Thomas C. Oden

Justification is the means whereby we appropriate the saving act of God in the past, and sanctification the promise of God's activity in the present and future ... Justification is primarily concerned with the relation between man and the law of God, sanctification with the Christian's separation from the world until the second coming of Christ ... Justification is the new creation of the new man, and sanctification is his preservation until the day of Jesus Christ. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There is nothing destroyed by sanctification but that which would destroy us. ~ William Jenkyn

We are caught in the in between of what we already are what we are yet to be. ~ Tenth Avenue North

Sanctification means the impartation of the Holy qualities of Jesus Christ. It is His patience, His love, His holiness, His faith, His purity, His godliness, that is manifested in and through every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy; it is drawing from Jesus the holiness that was manifested in Him, and He manifests it in me. ~ Oswald Chambers

Sanctification is a process. It is a gradual process. Run for your life from those who promise you instant sanctification. ~ R.C. Sproul

When I know that Christ is the one real sacrifice for my sins, that His work on my behalf has been accepted by God, that He is my heavenly Intercessor - then His blood is the antidote to the poison in the voices that echo in my conscience, condemning me for my many failures. Indeed, Christ's shed blood chokes them into silence! ~ Sinclair B. Ferguson

There is no justification without sanctification, no forgiveness without renewal of life, no real faith from which the fruits of new obedience do not grow. ~ Martin Luther

We could not take one step in the pursuit of holiness if God in His grace had not first delivered us from the dominion of sin and brought us into union with His risen Son. Salvation is by grace and sanctification is by grace. ~ Jerry Bridges

Knowing God is the condition for the sanctification of a human being by God's assistance and according to His intention. Wherever God is, there He is always creating ... He wants to create a new human being. To need God is to become new. And to know God is the crucial thing. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Weak and needy people finding their hope in Christ's grace are what mark a mature relationship. The most dangerous aspect of your relationships is not your weakness, but your delusions of strength. ~ Tim Lane And Paul Tripp