Many of us have been told that salvation is a free gift from God, but sanctification is our job and it requires discipline, sacrifice and hard work. God gets us through the gate, free in Christ, but we have to take it from there!

The term ‘sanctification’ simply means ‘growing and maturing in Christ’. Some preachers teach that it’s what ‘working out our salvation with fear and trembling’ means. Now this concept of salvation and sanctification somehow being separate – one being solely the work of God and the other being primarily our responsibility through discipline, sacrifice and hard work – is still widely taught and accepted in the Church even though it cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament.

When you study the New Testament and examine the Greek and look at the theological principles outlined there, you will not find a single verse to support one of the most widely held views about living the Christian life.

I remember being told and reading in reputable Christian journals and books, that my salvation and my sanctification are totally separate activities. One is God’s job and the other is my job, in partnership with Holy Spirit. ‘Grace gets you into the Kingdom of God, then through spiritual disciplines and hard work, we advance the Kingdom and please God.’

I was given that verse in James which says faith without works is dead, and that was always interpreted as an imperative for me to add good works to my faith so my faith would be effective, alive and real.

Many years later, I studied the Greek in that same passage in James and discovered it effectively says the exact opposite to how many people interpret it. What that passage in James really means is simple: If your faith is genuine, if your faith is in God (not in faith itself) then the good works will follow as the fruit of the life that is within you.

The good works, spiritual disciplines and the activities and ministries we commit to in the life of the Church are supposed to be the outflow of the love and presence of God in our lives. Otherwise, they are dead religious works. It really is that simple.

Now please understand what I’m saying here (and not saying): There is nothing wrong with all the spiritual disciplines. It is the source, the power, the motivation and the focus of those disciplines which can be completely wrong and very damaging to us as disciples and damaging to the ministry of the whole Church. There is actually only one thing that a new believer really should do first and foremost and it’s exactly the same thing I would exhort mature believers to do also, and that is to become rooted and grounded in God’s love. That’s the first and the highest priority – before anything else comes. We need to take whatever time is necessary to establish that deep foundation in our lives by word and deed and wait for it to set. Then we can build whatever we want on that foundation!

So, I guess if I had any vision for my Church congregation it would be this: I would like our Church to not be known primarily for its preacher and his sermons; I would like our Church not to be known primarily for our ministries and the things we do in serving others; I would like our Church not to be known primarily for our great worship.

My hope, my desire and my daily prayer is that we become a people who really know and experience the love of God – a people who are filled to the measure of all the fullness of God – Who is love. Then, and only then, can that love, God’s love, flow through us into the lives of those around us in our Church and in our community.

Until we minister and serve out of the fullness of God’s love, the reservoir of God’s love, we do so in our own strength and all that will amount to is more burned-out believers and a shrinking Church.