“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him – these things God HAS revealed to us through the Spirit.” – I Corinthians 1:9-10
I love to meditate on what it means to be sanctified. Once, before I was Nazarene, I wrote a love song called Sanctified. I wanted to write about a relationship, so full of love and innocence that the shadows and light could dance through it in rich healing motion. As I wrote, I realized I was talking to my First Love, to God. Now every time I sing that song, I realize that my heart was telling the truth all along, even back then, about the way I know God and responding to the way God knows me.
When you study the idea of being sanctified, it can turn into a word equation pretty quickly. Bless our religious hearts, the harder we try sometimes, the more we dilute and convolute the precious simplicity of our faith. I experienced an awareness of being sanctified before I could explain it in proper theological order. I was taught to ask for it. From God. So I did. And He did. And life changed. It was a sudden and gradual change, if you know what I mean.
Jesus didn’t get hung up on lingo, but He did use the word “sanctify” in His prayer in John 17. He prayed that we would be sanctified by the word, or by the truth.
Truth is an elusive concept these days. There are facts, and there is truth. Truth tells the real story, the non-negotiable admissions of the heart. For example, someone can give you a gift because they love you, or they can give it to manipulate you and make you feel obligated to them. Some gifts are free; some gifts are a power play. It can be very difficult to discern the difference, but time always tells.
God’s gifts have no strings attached. Sanctification is a gift to be treasured. It sets you free from the tug-of-war between good choices and bad ones. To be sanctified is to be graced with pure intention. It is non-resistant love. It is miraculously free of coercion and selfish motives but is the means by which you can be trustworthy with the gift of yourself to God and others. Pure intention. There is no “what’s in it for me,” but only the flow of a generous spirit.
I surrendered and was carried to a place I’d never seen.
I Corinthians 2:9