For many years of my Christian life, I think the number one thing that kept me defeated and unable to experience the miraculous blessing of God was how I understood the process of sanctification.

Sanctification is a big word, but it is nothing more than the process of being made holy and set apart for God’s special use. Something sanctified is no longer common or secular.

Now as a Pentecostal, my understanding of the process of sanctification in my life was that it was both instantaneous and progressive.

In other words, I thought that the process began instantaneously in an experience with God that was something separate from my salvation experience. We often referred to the experience as a second work of grace. Often what this really meant was that we got the victory over some bad habit.

But this experience was never good enough to last a lifetime, and so this process of sanctification had to be lived out through my own efforts of maintaining a holy lifestyle and assuring that the bad habit that I had just conquered didn’t come back. That was the progressive part.

Looking back, this was the primary belief in my life that kept me experiencing condemnation, sickness, and lack. I have said it before and will say it again. Condemnation, sickness, and lack only exist in the lives of Christians because they are believing some lie. And this misunderstanding of sanctification was the lie that was doing me in.

I had to keep myself holy because God couldn’t bless me unless I did.

Now our verse here completely and totally contradicts the way I thought about sanctification. (The way that tens of thousands of Pentecostals understand sanctification today.)

Paul wrote this letter “to those who ARE SANCTIFIED in Christ Jesus.” But he didn’t write the letter to a group of people who were BEING SANCTIFIED.

The verb is in the Greek perfect tense. What this means is that the action was 100% completed in the past. There is no process of sanctification beyond the finished work of the cross 2000 years ago!

Sanctification occurs at the very second a person accepts Jesus as their Savior! And when this occurs, at that very second the process is COMPLETE!

And not only this, the verb is also in the Greek passive voice. This means that your own efforts have absolutely nothing to do with the process of sanctification. You are merely the recipient of an action that you did not produce.

So if sanctification is not a process and can’t be maintained by my own efforts, what does this mean about my status with God?

It means that if I am in Jesus, then God considers me holy. Period! He considers me holy because of what Jesus did on the cross. And my personal performance has absolutely nothing to do with this status!

If you can ever get an understanding of this truth, you would never experience another shred of condemnation, or doubt that you were worthy to get your prayer answered.

Chrstian, God Himself has declared that you are holy! And when you find yourself in agreement with God, there is every reason to expect that your life is blessed and perfectly aligned to His miraculous provision of health, prosperity, and peace.

If you are sick, poor, or condemned, just get rid of the lie that is keeping you in that condition. Those things NEVER come from God because you ARE SANCTIFIED. A done deal!

That’s Good News!