When we come to Christ, we come as sinners, "Just as we are."  When God gives us new life, when we are reborn, the Holy Spirit begins a work in our lives.  We are, when we are babes in Christ,  alive but very sick.  We still have much personal sin in our lives; we have habits and addictions that are still there.  Sometimes we wonder if we are Christians at all.  Dealing with sin can be very discouraging for any of us, but especially for the new Christian.  However, none of us ever gets beyond sin while in this life.  We are always, to some extent, sick and in need of our Great Physician.

But there is good news!  God sovereignly wills our sanctification (1 Thess. 4:3), and he promises, on his own faithfulness, that he will do it (1 Thess. 5:23-24).  "Sanctification" is often translated in the newer Bible versions as "being made holy," and indeed the words are the same.  God is making us holy.  He promises that he will finally complete the work so that we will be completely holy, but we do not expect that until the time of our death, because as long as we are in the flesh, we wage a warfare against sin (Gal. 5:16-17, Rom. 7:17-20).

The truth is, thanks be to God, you and I are actually getting better every day.  We may not think so, for as the Spirit sanctifies us, we shall become more and more conscious of our sins.  But the reason we are more conscious of sin is that our minds are more godly and sin is increasingly repulsive to us.  Throughout our lifetime, the Holy Spirit is dealing with our sin-sickness and making us well and equipped for an eternal life where there will be no sin with all its ugly consequences.

Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit acts as lord in our lives to the extent that he transforms us into the likeness of Christ with every increasing glory (2 Cor. 3:18).  The image of God, lost in the fall, is daily being renewed in the life of the Christian, according to the model of the incarnate God, our Lord Jesus Christ.  This transformation into the image of Christ is the work of the Spirit, but it is a work in which we cooperate.   We repent and turn from sin.  We do the good works of obedience.  We live the life.  We do it, but we do it by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that God receives the glory.  We could not do it without the Holy Spirit, for the power of sin in our lives, even in the lives of Christians, is too great.  The language of Scripture is that the Spirit leads us, but that we do the actual living of our lives (Rom. 8:5-17).  We are commanded to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we will be able to test and approve GodÌs good, pleasing and perfect will (Rom. 12:2).  We have a responsibility, to allow the Spirit to transform our minds, but the verb is passive, which means that the real source of energy is not in us.  We are transformed by the Spirit, but we cooperate in the process by working with the Spirit in the renewing of our minds.  God will accomplish his work in you of making you holy; you need to work with God and not against him!

For further information on his subject ask for our tape series "Doctrines of Grace," and "Christ Our Comfort."  Engedi also offers a tape series on "Justification" which deals with our standing before God in a legal sense.