God Is Making You Holy

Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
Romans 6:22

Sanctified is a religious word Christians don’t use much anymore. It means, literally, “to be set apart” for God’s special use. It reminds us that a holy God can only be served by that which has been made holy.

Holiness happens in one sense when we trust in Jesus Christ, recognizing his death on the cross as the only sufficient payment for our sins. At that moment we become “set apart” in the eyes of God. We are no longer regarded as common and corrupt. We are actually sanctified—made pure and holy in the fullest, most eternal sense of the terms.

Then comes the messy business of practical holiness: learning to live out our new, true nature. Pure attitudes, God-honoring decisions, holy habits—these marks of a sanctified life take a lifetime to develop.

Like it or not, trials are some of the most effective tools God has in his relentless quest to set us apart. If trouble is what it takes to transform us, trouble is what God will allow us to experience.

GOD’S PROMISE TO ME
• I have freed you from the power of sin.

• You are my slave.

• I am making you holy.

MY PRAYER TO GOD
I praise you, God, for making me holy. Because of Christ I am clean and acceptable in your sight. I am called to live my life as a “sanctified” slave of God. As I encounter difficulties today, I want to respond in ways that “set me apart” from my old ways of thinking and living.