God is always so very gracious to us. He is loving and merciful to me even though I am evil, selfish, and wicked. I’ve been a youth pastor for one year now. I have been married for almost 4 years, and I have two sons. With my responsibilities growing, my own desire to progress in sanctification is also growing. It is probably more accurate to say that with my increased responsibilities, I am becoming more aware of my own sinfulness. For the past few months, I have been meditating on 2 Corinthians 3:18.
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
I am becoming more and more convinced that my greatest need is to fill my gaze and vision with the glory, honor, majesty, greatness, splendor, and God-ness of God. The very process of “beholding” him is what changes me. Furthermore, I cannot change myself. Rather, as I behold the Lord, the Spirit changes me. It is so humiliating to realize that even when I am trying to become more like Christ, I usually am thinking about ME! I always want to think about me, but God always wants me to think about Him.
I recently had the privilege of preaching a message on 2 Corinthians 3:18 at my church. You can listen to it here.
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Dan,
I commend your message to everyone that reads this. It is only 35 minutes long and it gets to the heart of the doctrine of sanctification. Clarity on this doctrine is needed more than ever. It is tragic to watch folks struggle with “self change” and then they wonder where is God in it all. The heart of the gospel goes well beyond the doctrine of justification. The gospel for everyday life is about sanctification and ultimately glorification.
I found the Jerry Bridges book, THE DISCIPLINE OF GRACE very helpful. I will confess that for most of my adult life I possessed a flawed view of sanctification. I thank those that helped me understand, just as you are proclaiming a message of hope that is vital to our young folks. A wrong view of sanctification will frustrate young folks and lead to predictable failure. May God bless your efforts in this important doctrine. And BTW, every person I speak to about this also experiences a deep awareness of sinfulness as we let the gospel change us. It is progress, even though it looks ugly!
[...] Beauty Fills Our Eyes Posted on May 24, 2009 by danleeper I mentioned in a post a couple days ago that God has been teaching me to “behold” His glory. Recently, I [...]