November 17th

Today's reading from the One Year Bible Chronological Reading Plan is 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28; 2 Thessalonians 1-3:18; Acts 18:4-23

I love reading Acts and Paul's letters to the churches at the same time - definitely making a bigger impact then reading straight from Matthew to Revelation!

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

You could write a whole sermon on those two verses. In fact, John MacArthur did and it's entitled A Prayer for Complete Sanctification.

I love his definition of sanctification....
Sanctification then is the process of being set apart from sin unto holiness. It is as if you have sin on the one hand, holiness on the other hand, and you are moving in progression away from sin to holiness. That's Paul's prayer burden, that there may be a decreasing attachment to sin, an increasing attachment to holiness, that there may be a decreasing incident of sin and an increasing incident of holiness, that there may be a decreasing frequency of sin and an increasing frequency of holiness. That's the path of sanctification.

Sanctification is a process. And it's a strange one, because it depends on God and yet, it also takes a lot of work on our part.

God is the source of our sanctification. But we still have to do it. But we can only do it through His power.

And the best thing - it's guaranteed to be successful. Because of us? NO! Because of Him. Because the one who calls you is faithful and he will do it!

Tomorrow's passage: Acts 18:24-19:20, 1 Corinthians 1-3